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7otosb | why, on tv coverage, do nfl punts and golf shots look like they’ve been shanked terribly but end up being fine. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7otosb/eli5_why_on_tv_coverage_do_nfl_punts_and_golf/ | {
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"Wide angle lens. Makes horizontal movement more pronounced than front-to-back movement. Like exaggerated curves when a pitcher throws the ball. If the camera was straight behind the kicker, it would look right, but at the slightest angle, the horizontal movement will look off."
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2oiniq | how is your race determined for legal purposes? | I tried asking this before, but never got a real answer. In things like scholarships, affirmative action, etc your ethnicity matters. But how do they establish it? What if you have no records of your family history? Do they send someone out with calipers to measure your cranium? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2oiniq/eli5how_is_your_race_determined_for_legal_purposes/ | {
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"I'm fairly certain that there really isn't an accepted legal definition of race. For the things that you asked about, there isn't really a legal issue if someone claims to be a certain race in order to gain benefit, so long as they are consistent with their declaration.\n\nFor example, claiming a different race on every form you fill out could be fraud, because it is intentionally deceptive, however, claiming to be black every single time despite a lack of evidence would probably be OK.",
"Be careful but i know a guy who marked down african american because he was a jokester he is white as snow but since where i live there isnt a huge black population he qualified for all sorts of bursaries for school and what not so to this day at jobs he marks down african american and has yet to be called on it"
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49etz8 | how does the silt from regular floods fertilize river valleys? | Like what is in the silt, what is missing in the pre-flood ground, and how does the flooding deposit silt (is it destructive flooding or how does that work if it happens every year?)
I'm mostly thinking in ancient times since I'm sure there is modern technology to control things better now. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/49etz8/eli5_how_does_the_silt_from_regular_floods/ | {
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"Silt typically has a lot of biological matter which is more nutrient rich. The biological matter collects in the bottoms of rivers, etc, and decomposes into silt. The floodwaters carry the sediments with them, and when the waters recede the silt is left behind. In some areas this is largely controlled in modern times but many river basins remain fertile zones to this day. "
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1ctbk4 | meteor showers | In light of the Lyrid meteor shower tonight, what's the deal with meteor showers? Why do they happen? How come they are better on certain nights, and better in certain areas? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ctbk4/eli5_meteor_showers/ | {
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"It's basically the earth travling through a debris trail left by a comet, see [illustration](_URL_1_) and [this as well](_URL_0_).\n\nSo a particular meteor shower occurs at same time each year because the debris trail stays pretty much in the same place. And when the trail is the densest we can see more of the meteor showers (and it's nighttime of course). "
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3gsxa0 | wells. how did ancients figure out where to dig? how did they dig a narrow hole in the earth? | Anything else regarding wells is cool too. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3gsxa0/eli5_wells_how_did_ancients_figure_out_where_to/ | {
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"It's not really a where kind of thing. You dig down and you'll always get water, and usually it's not that deep to get to the first water table. You'd want to pick somewhere without a lot of rock though, anywhere you knew the soil went down quite a ways, but sometimes they'd dig through rock too. Old wells are not all that narrow and are big enough for people to climb down and they dig it out with shovels. In places with poor soil cohesion, they can line it with stones to keep it sturdy."
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62nw5y | how do a little run-down motels in off the beaten path cities stay in business | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/62nw5y/eli5_how_do_a_little_rundown_motels_in_off_the/ | {
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"ELI5 Version: It's cheaper to live in the middle of nowhere. \n\nIt's all about the cost of living VS revenue. Chances are that out in the boonies there are plenty of factors that contribute to a low cost of living, so they do not necessarily have to make a huge amount of money (assuming they have no significant debts/loans to pay off on the business). ",
"My husband has jobs in the middle of no where sometimes or too far from home and stays in motels. My guess is workers and long distance drivers. ",
"Many of those old motels were built during the early days of highway travel, but before the Interstate system. Think Route 66. Cars of the day ('30s to '60s) didn't get good mileage and most cars couldn't do 65 or 75 for extended periods, if at all. Back in the day, there was a big price difference between motels/motor courts and hotels. That line has become a little fuzzier over the years. \n\nHere in Albuquerque we still have a few old Route 66 motels, but they are mostly populated with prostitutes/johns, drug dealers, temp workers trying to maximize their per diem, long term residents who can't qualify for an apartment or just choose to stay off the grid for various reasons. And of course, very frugal travelers who don't care about anything but price. \n\nMany of those old motels were passed down to children and grand-children who didn't really care about the legacy. They either hired a manager on the cheap or sold the property at a deep discount for a quick cash out. ",
"My wife spent a month working at a camp four hours away from home. Every weekend, we'd each drive two hours and meet up at hotel like this. \n\n1. It was family-owned.\n2. They lived on-site.\n3. They were the only employees. \n\nSo very low overhead and minimal upkeep. It was actually clean (if old) and the owners were friendly. (Pretty sure they thought we were having an affair, though.)",
"I stay in budget hotels on the outskirts of cities in England all the time. They're usually close to the motorway (expressway). \n\nThe other guests tend to be a big mix of people. Lots of construction trade people, who are doing jobs in the area. People who are doing some kind of training seminar, perhaps at a local hospital. Contractors doing something at a local manufacturing plant. Engineers working on a project at a power station. Consultants doing something at a nearby business park. IT guys called in to set something up for a factory. \n\nLots of businesses aren't in the city centres and lots of jobs involve visiting a site for a few days. ",
"A town in my county uses their motels to put up homeless people to keep them off the streets. ",
"I have worked as a desk clerk at a few different motels like this. Some of the guests were like you suspect, sort of. It was more common to have people rent a room to do drugs for a night or two, than to have dealers setting up shop. \n\nThe great majority of guests, though, were truckers and workers from far away. Most small towns have some kind of industry nearby, and truckers will drop off a load, stay at a motel, and pick up a new load the next day. Also, sometimes, there would be crews like construction or power line workers and stuff like that. They would stay for like a week or two to do a job. \n\nEdit: Also, there can be one or two weekends each year that really make the whole year for a small motel like that. Like, the county fair or something like that. At one place I worked, the whole place would be full for a week or two leading up to and a week following the local fair. And they would be booked up the year before. Depending on the overhead, a motel could keep going all year off of something like that.",
"Assume what you want. They could have a presence on the web and rent rooms for slightly less. Our mapping software lets us find anywhere easily. If five dollars difference makes a difference they can stay in business. A motel which has its mortgage paid off can keep a family in food and repairs made. The debt has been amortized. ",
"What's your proximity to a major city? Is your town maybe a perfect equidistance on the way to a popular destination?\n\nAlso, keep in mind that they probably have very low overhead costs, If they've been in business for over 50 years, their financial situation could be quite stable and maybe all they have to pay for is wages and some updates to upholstery/linens once in a blue moon. ",
"Your theory is possible... could also be people passing through, people on business, people needing someplace to stay after leaving their spouse. Also, they are often on land somebody owns outright and staffed by the owner, so they may run a hotel that's just not very busy but doesn't need to be to stay afloat",
"Many such hotels/motels change their business model from nightly visitors to long-term weekly and monthly rentals. This way, they can receive a steady income from people who are either in the zone where they cannot afford the financial basics to obtain a rental home or apartment; from people who are traveling for work and who need an inexpensive place to stay while on short-term long term projects; or from people whose interest it is maintaining a low profile due to past criminal convictions or current criminal activities.\n\nSince the motel properties are usually paid for, any monies that the owners receive is profit. Since minimal maintenance upkeep is often what is done by the motel and non-paying clientele are quickly evicted (in some states, such residents don't receive the same protections that regular renters do) the owners can earn hefty profits while garnering minimal expenditures.",
"A lot of them effectively rent rooms to long-term guests.\n\nI end up at a lot of these places (I'm a cop, not a drug addict) and a lot of people actually live in those hotels/motels.\n\nThey're super cheap because they're not advertising and keeping them to bare-minimum standards.\n"
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4xwi01 | how nintendo "creating artificial shortages" helps them profit rather than hinders them. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4xwi01/eli5_how_nintendo_creating_artificial_shortages/ | {
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"Supply and demand.\n\nThe demand for game consoles is highest when they are newest.\n\nDemand for a durable product like a game console declines rapidly as the market is satisfied. Once you have a Wii, you don't need another one.\n\nIf Nintendo builds factories enough to satisfy the demand for a new console immediately upon release, then they will very soon have too many factories for the declining demand for consoles as more people already have one and fewer people want one. Nintendo would have to fire the workers in those factories to avoid losing money building consoles too few people want.\n\nIf Nintendo builds FEWER factories than it would take to sell everyone a console immediately at launch date, then they can run those factories longer to fill the demand eventually, thus saving money on building factories and on training workers, while still building the same number of consoles.\n\nEventually. "
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656vyp | peru is the world leader in producing counterfeited dollars with super good quality, and those are just individuals, so if a small group of people can do that why wouldn't corrupt governments print dollars since they already have more resources to them? | I just watched this small documentary on ViceNews on youtube that was really well made. It shows how Peru is the number one country at producing faker dollars. So I was wondering if those individuals can already produce such dollars with really close textures, security features and everything why wouldn't corrupt government overseas do the same since they already have all the printing machine, more experts and resources etc? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/656vyp/eli5_peru_is_the_world_leader_in_producing/ | {
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"They can and they do. North Korea is another huge source of counterfeit currency. Most countries don't do it though because it is a great way to piss off the entire planet and get slapped with crippling economic sanctions.",
"They can and do. North Korea and Iran, in particular, are suspected to print counterfeit dollars.\n\nHowever, those countries have the same problem that drug dealers have when trying to spend the money. For example, if you show up at a bank with $50,000 in cash and try to make a deposit the bank will ask you where you got the money from. If you can't demonstrate that the money came from a legitimate source, the bank will refuse to accept it because of the risk that you made the money from selling drugs or some other illegal activity.\n\nLikewise, legitimate companies, banks, and governments will be very suspicious of cash payments being made in dollar bills that are coming from countries which don't have a legitimate source of dollar income. \n\nThis means that countries printing fake dollars can only use them to make payments to small entities in places where oversight is lax, like India or Pakistan, which itself severely limits the amount of counterfeit dollars that they can produce in a year."
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qey6c | canadian robocall/election scandal | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/qey6c/eli5_canadian_robocallelection_scandal/ | {
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"Nothing has been proven yet, but Elections Canada has started an investigation into claims such as:\n\nThe Conservative Party is accused of paying a company to have computers call potential Liberal or NDP voters at home, and tell them that their polling place had been moved to a false location. It's been proven that the robocalls happened, and the company making the calls is regularly hired by the Conservatives, but no link has yet been proven in this case.\n\nIn another parliamentary district, the accusation is that the Conservatives had a company call potential Liberal voters at home, pretending to be an incredibly rude, arrogant Liberal campaign worker, trying to split the vote between Liberal and NDP opposition so the Conservative candidate would stand a better chance.\n\nIn several districts (we call them \"ridings\"), the Conservative candidate was elected by a tiny margin of votes (as few as 14 votes in one riding) so even if only a few voters were affected by the robocalls, the outcome of the election was potentially changed by these tactics, one or more Members of Parliament could have been elected by fraud.\n\n...and since the Conservatives hold only a very narrow majority of seats in Parliament, in an extreme case the election as a whole could have been thrown by these tactics. ",
"Some one, or some people, decided that, instead of convincing more people to vote for his/her party, that they could just trick people they know WON'T vote for their party (there are lists of party members and supporters) into going to the wrong place to vote, and hopefully they would end up not voting at all. They did this using automated phone calls made by a machine, or robocalls.\nThe question that remains is WHO was involved in this?\nThere are so many complaints of this happening, people are starting to think that people inside the party, who work for the government might have done this. This would mean people in the Conservative Party, part of the government, have committed a crime. This would be a huge scandal and they could be in very big trouble, and lose the trust of Canadians.\nAlso, if Elections Canada gets so many complaints from one riding that it would mean the winner of that riding would be different if the voters didn't get these phone calls, they might have to hold bi-elections - this means the people in those certain ridings would vote all over again."
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ctyta4 | what's the difference between firmware and kernel, | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ctyta4/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_firmware_and/ | {
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"My interpretation is that kernel is what minimum requirement of software required to run different softwares efficiently, and firmware is software designed to run on a specific hardware that is only meant to ever run this specific software.\n\nLike back in the older days of computing, if you wanted to run different programs you would shut down the computer put new instructions in and start it back up again. Then people noticed there are parts of the instructions that was very similar to each other. Like 'what is the keyboard saying' 'where to put data I just entered' 'tell me at what step my program threw a hissyfit'. So, they made a small program that most programmers could use to run other programs without having to write everything. It'd be like the kitchen in a shared living space. Not everybody needs their own kitchen. Even if you were complete strangers living together, you wouldn't need to buy an oven and a fridge for yourself. (But, then you can, if you really wanted to, like embedded system, where in this analogy would be when you decide to live alone, and don't intend to invite anyone else) That's what a Kernel does.\n\nFirmware is more like this living alone analogy. Imagine a house that someone never intend to invite anyone else into. The ceiling is just short enough that this person living alone will never have problem standing up fully. The chairs are all exactly his size, the bed is just big enough for him to lie down comfortably. The air conditioner is at a temperature and humidity just perfect for him. The fridge only has enough food for him, at a place where only he knows how to open. So, it just wouldn't be possible to put anyone else in it. If you decide to put this software anywhere else, you would need to make all sorts of accomodations for it that would not be efficient anymore. Or if you put a different software in to this house that was built with that other specific software in mind, the new software would die out, Maybe get stuck in a doorway or never tall enough to reach the food etc."
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2enz0z | why do we use "hex keys/allen keys" and have hexagonal screws and not just use normal screws? | Since you have to have a completely different screw driver instead of the normal easy + screw, why do we use the hexagonal screws which need an allen key? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2enz0z/eli5_why_do_we_use_hex_keysallen_keys_and_have/ | {
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"It's a lot harder to strip out an allen head bolt.",
"The \"normal easy + screw\" is anything but. It too easy for the screwdriver to slip out and strip the screw head. Hex head screw heads can handle much more torque before stripping out.\n\n(That \"+ screw\" is a Phillips-head screw, BTW.)",
"If I could push a button and replace every single screw in the world with torx, I'd push it until the contacts wore out. Allen and torx are both much, much less prone to slipping, have higher torque capacities, and are just all around more pleasant to deal with. The only real advantage to phillips and slotted screws is that those kids of screwdrivers are much more common."
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3pwacf | how companies preserve milk? | Milk in a carton can stay on the shelf for 6 months without refrigeration and they claim that "No Preservatives Added". while local milk if kept in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks with not be usable.
How can they achieve this? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3pwacf/eli5_how_companies_preserve_milk/ | {
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"Ultra pasteurization (really high heat for a longer time) and sometimes irradiation sterilizes the milk. It also changes the flavor, texture and color of the milk and many do not like it so they normally pasteurized and non-irradiated milk that is not as sterile and will spoil faster, but tastes better. ",
"1. (**The main technique**) Pasteurize it so that there's absolutely no (or negligible) bacteria levels in the milk. This is called UHT (Ultra-High-Temperature) processing, and involves heating the milk so hot that bacteria simply can't live in it.\n\n2. Remove all the air from the carton: any bacteria left needs air to reproduce, so they will be dormant rather than \"eating\" the sugars in the milk (them eating the sugars is the process that makes the milk \"go off\")\n\n3. Potentially irradiating the milk, although this only happens in some markets\n\n4. Removing some sugars from the milk - certain sugars in the milk are more prone to the \"makes milk go off\" bacteria than others. Removing this bacteria makes the milk go off more slowly.\n\n(Pasteurizing is where you heat it up and cool it down very quickly to kill off the bacteria, and is done to most milk, but not as much as for long life milk)\n"
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5hqx7e | the advantages and disadvantages of watching porn? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5hqx7e/eli5_the_advantages_and_disadvantages_of_watching/ | {
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"Advantage: Stress relief\nDisadvantage: Time and slight chance of relationship complications, and sometimes money ",
"From a person who isn't really into it. Prob my older age and other factors. \n\nPro- sharing something with your SO\nCon- accidentally seeing something you can't unsee\n\nPro- finding something that excites you\nCon- comparing your body and performance to the stars\n\nPro- using it to help either partner climax\nCon- dependency\n\n",
"Interesting question. Most of what you see on the internet about this is on religious or other agenda driven sites.\n\nThere is a [Wiki](_URL_0_) on it that basically says that there haven't been any reliable studies done.\n\nPersonally, I think it can be and should be a harmless release. But that said, I've known some guys who were addicted to porn, and in their social interactions with women they came across creepy af. People who keep their viewing at a reasonable level should be just fine. \n\n",
"I think the benefits and detriments are very personal in this instance (I don't mean in a \"personal privacy\" way.) Everyone reacts to stimulus in different ways, and the chemical and hormonal effects vary greatly from person to person.\n\nThat being said, I think this is a really interesting question because if enough people discuss, you'll get to see a very diverse set of answers to an otherwise very personal process, one that many of us do but don't otherwise talk about seriously.\n\n+ In my case, watching porn and masturbating actually alleviates insomnia and headaches, the greater the satisfaction the better the result. Sex would obviously be the best case scenario for a pick-me-up, but my partner isn't always available or in the mood, so pornography fires my imagination and allows me greater satisfaction.\n\n+ Likewise, porn helps me develop a better sexual experience by learning new ways to perform. Some acts are obviously just for show without actually intensifying our contact, but it can still be fun to try new things.\n\n+ One last benefit I find worth mentioning is that my relationship with my partner is just about one half step above friend with benefits. I realize I'm free to sleep with whomever I want, but at the same time, it's my intention to create a relationship with this guy, and if I'm in a true relationship, I'm a very loyal person and I like to keep that perception constant because trust issues can kill a relationship quickly, even if there's no reason to mistrust. Therefore, when I get horny, and my partner isn't available, the feeling doesn't just go away. I find myself VERY AWARE that I'm not committed or exclusive. I know I'd regret sleeping with another guy after the act, and like I said, I don't want to have any awkward explanations for the day we do decide to start dating, so watching porn and masturbating is just a very convenient way to chill out and kill that libido.\n\n\nI think the detriments of pornography are a little harder to nail down because sexual gratification is PURELY instant gratification, and long-term consequences are harder to observe day-to-day. Personally, I don't see any personality or chemical disadvantages that I would attribute to me watching porn over the years so this is my attempt at finding something to link to porn as a disadvantage.\n\n- Dependence on pornography can kill the sexual appeal in a relationship. My ex used to watch porn WHILE I WAS IN BED with him, I'd often wake up to the bed shaking and moaning coming from his phone on the lowest possible, yet still-audible level. This has lead to two or three arguments, or at least contributed to other sexual-related problems we've discussed. Truly, nothing annoyed me more than BEING THERE, and him still choosing porn. \n\n- Shame is a bit of a bitch, and in our culture, porn is a shameful social interaction. Someone catching you watching, you accidentally leaving it on your mobile browser when a friend pulls it up-- in most cases, there's just no graceful way out of these situations, and I'm always left remembering that moment for YEARS. I'm sure the other thinks it's funny, or even forgets it happens after a day or two, but it messes with me. I know they watch porn too, sexuality shouldn't be shamed, but I grew up in a very conservative family and it's ingrained in my head to be private about sex.\n\n- Porn can desensitize yourself to sexual gratification. The need to watch porn to masturbate is an example, I just get bored if I'm trying to masturbate without it, and that's probably not a healthy thing."
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7ds31w | what is that blurry sensation we get when we’re lying down and get up too quickly? | The best way I can describe it is feeling my head really heavy and then hearing like a buzzing sound and my vision goes all blurry and red-ish. This happens to me several times a week. Does it happen to anyone else as well? And, can someone explain what this is? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7ds31w/eli5_what_is_that_blurry_sensation_we_get_when/ | {
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"Postural hypotension. You're getting up too fast and low blood pressure to your brain is causing the other symptoms. This can even knock you out entirely. Get up a little more slowly to give your body a chance to raise the blood pressure to your brainmeats.",
"It's called orthostatic hypotension. It is because your bloodpressure can't correct itself fast enough going from lying down to standing up. When you ate lying down your blood doesn't have to be transported vertically so your vessels can relax a bit and your body has to work less hard to keep everything going. When you stand up fast you get the component of gravity back and the blood will be pulled towards the ground until your vessels react and contract to keep a steady bloodpressure everywhere in your body. When you have a low bloodpressure in general or when your vessels can't react(fast enough) you get a temporary drop of bloodpressure to your brain which could even lead to fainting if it is severe enough or lasts long enough. It can help to stand up slow or eat a bit more salt(if it's due to low bloodpressure.)",
"ELI5. Put a water bottle flat and stand it up. The water sits at the bottom. Your body is supposed to pump the blood at the bottom to the top, but when you stand up too fast your body can't catch up and your head doesn't have enough blood to work well because it's all stuck in your feet."
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afpzoz | how come when you really have to pee you can be relatively okay until you step through the threshold of your home and it becomes a desperate race to get your shoes off and pants unbuttoned before you pee your pants? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/afpzoz/eli5_how_come_when_you_really_have_to_pee_you_can/ | {
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"It's like a weird type of Pavlavs response.\n\nYour body knows it can relieve itself in the bathroom and the closer you get the more the subconscious response to empty your bladder becomes noticable.",
"( I know many people have strict policies of no shoes in the house but it's hilarious to me thinking about having to take your shoes off to pee",
"Unbuttoning your trousers I understand, but why would you need to get your shoes off when you're going to the toilet?",
"When I was a kid I walked to school every day. Some days, as soon as I put the key in the door after my walk home from school (about one mile) I would have to go so badly, I was worried I wouldn’t make it to the bathroom in time. We lived in a house built at the turn of the century and one day I couldn’t get the wonky door to unlock and thought I was going to burst so I peed in the backyard. I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone I did that. ",
"Why do we need to remove our shoes beforehand? "
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3mha9k | why do rhythmic noises like windshield wipers go in and out of sync with the beat of music that is playing? why doesn't it stay in sync or out of sync permanently? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3mha9k/eli5_why_do_rhythmic_noises_like_windshield/ | {
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"Small differences in tempo seem to align for short periods of time. So the song on the radio may have a tempo of 100 beats per minute, and your wipers may be oscillating back and forth at 99 beats per minute, and for several seconds it will be like the universe is in control of everything - mindblowing synchronicity, your car is rockin' out to your jams! But no, the tempos are just temporarily MOSTLY lining up where it feels in sync briefly, and then over time, they drift back out of sync.",
"This is why:\n_URL_0_\n\nSimilar but not equal frequencies of the beats. They are 5 and 5.1 Hz in the google graph example. Scroll to the right to see how the 2 curves behave."
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2hpqey | does leaving the charger in mobile technologies (i.e., laptops, tablets, phones, etc...) really degrade the battery life significantly or is it just some tech myth? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2hpqey/eli5does_leaving_the_charger_in_mobile/ | {
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"Trickle charging does have an effect on a batteries life-span. But, it's not that much of a big deal. Granted, you would notice a difference if you had 2 laptops, one that was constantly trickle charged, and one that was not. The trickle charged battery would, over time, hold an inferior charge. \n\nRealistically though, you probably won't notice a difference. \n\ntl;dr Yes, it does, but the degradation is quite minor.",
"I don't think it's an issue in laptops, which will bypass the battery altogether once it's full (that's why you can run the laptop with the battery removed). It does have an impact on phones and some tablets (the ones that are built like phones- I'm sure some of the Windows tablets are built like laptops) because they don't have that circuitry so the battery is constantly charging and discharging.",
"5 years ago this was a bigger issue, but batteries have changed, so if you have a five year old PC or mobile phone, probably not a great idea. ",
"Older rechargeable technologies, such as NiMH (nickle metal hydride) had worn down quickly of constantly recharged. Newer batteries, including most laptops, are lithium Ion batteries. These don't have most of the flaws of Ni-Cad and NiMH, but they last longer if they are kept less than fully charged. More details [here](_URL_0_).",
"Would this be a different concept than say from a car battery? Which is constantly changing while the vehicle is running?",
"One big factor is how often you use the device. If it is being recharged every day, extra trickle chaerge does not help. If you leave it for a few months and don't use it, the battery will slowly self discharge and eventually damage itself. In the extreme case, leaving a rechargeable for more than 6 months can cause failure. I have thrown out dozens of rechargeable car batteries at work due to them not being trickle charged in storage. Of course every chemistry has a different behavior.",
"Entirely depends on the technology. Most of the newest tech will either keep the battery optimally conditioned when its plugged in or will indicate when to plug it in or out. (My phone does this.) ",
"A lot of the other answers here are thinking that overcharging is the cause of battery life decay, and since new electronics prevent that, it is not an issue. It is correct that this problem used to exist with overcharging, but this is only one cause of battery life degradation. The other one is to do with natural battery decay.\n\nOver time, the overall capacity of a battery decreases, for various reasons. This should be recognized as an obvious phenomenon - I'm sure everyone has experienced the fact that their battery lasted much longer on their phone when they first bought it as opposed to 2-3 years later. \n\nThe important fact here is that this rate of degradation *varies depending on the charge of the battery*. For example, a battery that is constantly held at 40% charge will naturally lose capacity at a different rate than a battery that is constantly held at 80% charge.\n\nAs it so happens, the slowest rate of decay occurs around 40%. This is the reason why, if you want to store a battery for a prolonged period of time, you should discharge it to around 35-45%. The fastest rate of decay occurs in the 0-20% charge range.\n\nWhen you keep your charger plugged in, obviously you are keeping your battery at around 100%. This charge level does not cause degradation that is noticeably fast or slow, but it does cause faster decay than many charge levels. Thus, if you leave your battery at 100%, you will notice your battery will degrade faster than if you let it discharge, then charge it, then discharge it, etc. (which brings in another issue of discharge cycles, but the decay caused by discharge cycles is less significant than self-decay). \n\nQuantifying this degradation, a battery kept at room temperature will decay to about 96% of it's full capacity in a year when kept at 40% charge, while a battery kept at 100% charge will decay to about 80% of its capacity in one year. ",
"There is a natural degradation of the batteries that many can also link to the charging. Overcharging is not so prevalent anymore and will still cause a little damage to the battery life of the battery, but nowhere near what the older batteries experienced. Also a key note is that as a cell in the battery dies the other cells have to pick up the slack created by the dead one. This causes the remaining cells to degrade faster. This phenomenon occurs in all batteries "
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6k6vy1 | how did japan develop this multifaceted culture; where on one hand it is steeped in the deepest of traditions dating back thousands of years; on the other it is a society in a continual state of rapid flux, with a very modern take on everyday problems? | tl;dr : A land known for both the exquisite craftsmanship of Katanas (Samurai swords) and Robots, just how? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6k6vy1/eli5_how_did_japan_develop_this_multifaceted/ | {
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"One thing I know is that the US influenced Japan culture quite a bit after WWII. As you should know, Japan was forbidden to have a military. That was Article 9. It offered Japan \"a way of retaining a positive sense of uniqueness in defeat\". Japan modernized quite a bit and at a rapid pace post-WWII. I don't remember the exact details as it was a long time ago. The book I learned this from in college was called \"Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of WWII\" by John Dower.",
"Japan had a strong centralized government that deliberately decided what aspects of the west to take in as required and which to reject - this happened very late, as they abruptly abandoned a feudal government in the mid and late 19th century. They had also never been conquered by outsiders, and had a long history of seclusion, leading to preservation of traditions. The two combined to make a very modern and industrious country with a strong sense of local culture and traditions."
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3rr6v4 | why do the magnetic field worsen/disappear when the core solidifies? | I've read from other posts here that due to mars core becoming solid it lost its atmopshere.
Why is the magnetic field depended on a "liquid" core? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3rr6v4/eli5_why_do_the_magnetic_field_worsendisappear/ | {
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"The magnetic field of a planet depends on the movement of magnetic materials. In the case of the Earth and Mars the magnetic material is liquid iron in the core. \n\nWhen the core of Mars solidifies enough that there are no more currents of iron the magnetic field disappears.\n\nEarths magnetic field is the sum of the movement of iron within our crust. It reverses over thousands of years as different flows win out in strength.",
"_URL_0_\n\n\nThis article explains it."
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d9jk43 | what would happen if concrete is left in a moving concrete truck? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d9jk43/eli5_what_would_happen_if_concrete_is_left_in_a/ | {
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"It will cure and harden. Afterwards leaving a layer of concrete inside the drum that has to be removed with a jackhammer.",
"First things first: concrete does not *dry*, it *cures*. The evaporation of water is not what hardens concrete. In fact, concrete is a dry mix that will only start the chemical curing process in the presence of water. In other words, concrete will start to harden as soon as water is added. \n\n***In fact***, if you were to vaporize all the water after adding it, the chemical process would stop and the concrete would not harden - it would be brittle. In hot, dry climates this can be a problem, because the concrete needs to be sufficiently hydrated to cure correctly.\n\n\nThe turning of the drum isn't to keep the concrete from curing, but rather to just keep the mix inside the drum. Depending on how far away the pour site is, the concrete inside could be dry or already mixed with water.\n\nInside the drum is a large spiral, like a corkscrew. This spiral spins in such a way that the concrete will be kept inside the drum during transit. When the truck arrives on-site, the operator will switch the direction of the spinning, and the screw now forces the concrete up and out of the drum."
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dap7n1 | how can such a small dose of medication have such a huge impact in the way our bodies work? | I take some medications prescribed by my doctor. These medications are all prescribed in milligram doses ... when you take into consideration I’m a male of 190lbs, I just can’t fathom that such small quantities can have such drastic effects on how my body functions. Another example: I hear on the news the rise of drugs laced with Fentanyl and that all it takes is a few grains to kill you. How is this even possible? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dap7n1/eli5_how_can_such_a_small_dose_of_medication_have/ | {
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"This question is wildly broad, since the mechanism of action for various substances can be wildly different. But metaphorically, it's the same way you can demolish a high rise without explosives on every wall. We think of our bodies as a distinct unit, but they aren't. They're huge conglomerations of various systems. You don't need to affect everything; you just need to affect one special piece of a given system.",
"Keep in mind that as small as dosages are, that’s still a lot of molecules. 200 mg of ibuprofen gives you approximately 600,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules of the active ingredient, assuming my very quick math is approximately right. And these molecules can bind to a cell, exert their effect, then get bumped off the cell and do the same thing to a different cell, until the molecule is broken down/cleared by the liver and kidneys",
"The body is made of dozens and dozens of small functions which act with and against each other, to create what we call life or health. Changes to one of these functions can throw everything off balance. A little bit of a drug might be milligrams, but that is still millions and billions of particles which are targeting a specific, specialized function.\n\nThink about a car. It's thousands of pounds of metal, with dozens of moving parts. But if you remove a gear from the transmission, your driving experience would be very, very different.",
"*TL;DR: We're really complex creatures, with tons and tons of chemical or electrical processes going on in our bodies all the time to keep us living and breathing and keep our brains thinking. Our bodies have lots of defenses to deal with the bad stuff, most of the time. But just like a computer can get hacked, so can our bodies by the right (or wrong) chemical.*\n\nSome parts of the way our body works are WAY more sensitive to something super-rare that frigs around with them. And it doesn't take much of that super-rare thing to make a difference. There are chemicals that affect super-important parts of our body's functions, and some creatures (and other humans) can make those rare chemicals. Fentanyl, made by humans, is one. So is blue-ringed octopus venom, a deadly poison. And, on the other side, so is penicillin, which knocks out tiny creatures that try and attack our bodies but we can easily deal with.",
"We have incredibly complex bodies and that complexity comes in layers. The things our bodies have learned to deal with naturally we can have a high level of tolerance for. We can handle a broad range of toxins and microscopic invaders because our bodies have needed to build up defenses and strategies to keep plodding on after eating something we shouldn't or getting an infection. This is the fortified wall of our defenses that evolution has provided and as you noted specific threats like alcohol have to show up with pretty big numbers to overwhelm those defenses and threaten us and this protection can scale with our physical size.\n\nMedicines and certain poisons are so effective in small doses because many of them change our bodies by mimicking instructions to tell our bodies to perform a task it is already prepared to do. For example you could lower someones blood pressure by inserting millions of little braces into each blood vessel to expand them manually by a few micrometers or you could just counterfeit a single email that tells the system in charge of blood vessel dilation to turn the knob a few clicks. Your body can dilate your blood vessels and will for a variety of reasons but since hypertension kills most people after they've already had plenty of time to breed it's outside the window where evolution could have taught your body to perform this trick itself so medicine has to pick up the slack.\n\nSimilarly fentanyl is a tiny pack of emails that tell your nervous system to chill the hell out and stop sending so many instructions. This can quickly stop pesky spam instructions like \"THERE IS PAIN HERE\" and fuck up some complicated instructions so that only parts of the messages are getting through and they read more like entertaining mad libs for a bit (that's the enjoyable high in this tortured metaphor). But even if it takes a lot of fucked up communications to mess up something major and relatively protected these chemical instructions are incredibly tiny and our body is built to move things like this around quickly otherwise our brains wouldn't be able to do their job. So the emails are all marked as \"urgent\" \"must read\" and it does not take that many before it's convinced the nerves that keep you breathing to take their last day off.",
"LSD doses are so small that they are measured in ug (micro grams). The reason why the feeling is so intense on so little is that it acts as an imposter serotonin. Serotonin is one of the main things that controls our feelings and how we perceive what's going on around us. This is why drugs can be so potent in such little volume. Like the others in here said, it only takes a little bit to override and single function in your brain and your bodies whole system changes to react to what the new command going on in the brain is."
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4ixjbq | why do animals live so long? wouldn't it make more sense to die after mating early in life as to have more gene turnover? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ixjbq/eli5_why_do_animals_live_so_long_wouldnt_it_make/ | {
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"Evolution does not work based on what \"makes more sense\". And generally, there is no great advantage to a \"higher gene turn over\". It is all about one generation successfully passing their genes along to make another generation. The timeline, in general, is irrelevant. Some animals mature quickly, mate, and die early. Some animals live for a very long time. If both species are successful, then why should the timeline matter?",
"It's important to understand, contrary to intuition, is that it's not an individual organism wanting to breed and pass on genes to the next generation - it's the [genes themselves wanting to duplicate](_URL_0_), using the individual as nothing more than a vehicle to do so. And a gene, any gene, wants nothing other than to copy itself as much as possible.\n\nWhen taken from that angle, if a single gene wants to copy itself and spread, the best way to do that is to ensure the vehicle it's effectively 'driving' (say, your body) sticks around long enough to give themselves the opportunity to make as many copies as possible. Genes don't want to be mixed and turned over - they simply want to survive in their current form.\n\nSure, the meta-strategy of their game - the game of copying as much as possible - does mean that long-term it's beneficial to mix and maintain varied gene pools (which is why sex, for example, exists at all), but from the context of a gene in the body of one individual; it doesn't care. Just wants to xerox itself *ad infinitum*. The longer it's vehicle lives for, the longer it can.\n\nI'm not quite sure I did the idea justice - it's fairly abstract and not exactly taught before college/university level. If you're curious though, about how evolution works in real terms, I'd recommend checking out Richard Dawkins' popular science book '[The Selfish Gene](_URL_1_)' - kinda' changes how you see all of biology in a rather powerful way (it's also the book that invented the idea of the meme!).",
"I am not sure this question is worded precisely enough to yield one correct answer. Some animals live long and some do not. Most animals that live long continue to reproduce throughout their lives. Gene turnover is not really part of evolution. It is passing genes on to the next generation that matters. It doesn't matter if that happens when a reproducer is old or young if it is still reproducing. Only humans (females), killer whales, and pilot whales outlive their fertility significantly. Humans used to mostly die shortly after their years of fertility (as our closest relatives, apes tend to do). Scientists are not clear as to why the other animals outlive their fertility. One theory is the \"grandmother hypothesis,\" which is the idea that the infertile older generation helps to raise the children of the younger fertile animals. Another theory is that the competition for scarce resources (i.e., food) is disruptive to survival where both the older generation and younger generation are pregnant. I do not believe there is a consensus as to why these species outlive their fertility significantly."
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1m6hu7 | invisibility | Could humans ever develop any way to make someone or something invisible? How would it work? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1m6hu7/eli5_invisibility/ | {
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"Well, obviously it's hard to speculate about future scientific discoveries. We currently have no idea how to make the human body itself transparent. However, there has been progress made in active camouflage, similar to how chameleons and octopi work.",
"already in the works. it's called active camouflage. being developed for use on military vehicles. involves cover the entire vehicle in LCD, cameras on each side of the vehicle, project image from camera on one side to the LCD's on the other side.",
"Here's a clothing example of the active camouflage already mentioned:\n[_URL_0_](_URL_0_)"
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1livoe | what's so bad about software patents and the issue with "patent trolls" | I don't really understand anything regarding this issue, but it seems like something important enough to need a basic understanding of. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1livoe/eli5_whats_so_bad_about_software_patents_and_the/ | {
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"The patent system tends to award patents for things that shouldn't be patented - things like the notion of storing files on a remote server to back them up. In fact, if you can write well enough, you can go out and get a patent on more or less that exact thing, even if it's been patented hundreds of times before (like that particular idea has).\n\nThis happens because 1) you can make the tiniest tweak imaginable to a patent that's already out there and now you've got an original idea to patent, 2) the volume of patent applications is far too high for the patent office to appropriately vet them, 3) they're far too technical and wide ranging for every patent to be examined by an expert in that particular field, and 4) (important for patent trolls) even if the patent office does properly examine and recognize the nuance that your patent has versus similar ones, the court system is likely to be willing to read your patent much more broadly than the patent office might.\n\nIn practice, 4) means you might patent \"a method for backing up files remotely,\" the patent office might award it to you because of some tiny detail buried in the patent, and then the courts might be willing to ignore that tiny detail and just go with the title, meaning that you can sue anyone who backs up files remotely without your permission.\n\nSo patent trolls will do something like going out and finding every patent related to remote backup that's owned by an individual, and offer what is (to them) a great payday for a patent they've never made any money off of. Now that troll owns twenty patents for variations of file backup methods. They sue every company that backs up files remotely for huge sums of money - sums that are so large that even if the chances of success are low, the sued companies aren't willing to take the chance of bankruptcy and settle for smaller but still enormous amounts of money.\n\nIt's a huge drain on medium sized companies that are too small to fight the trolls in court and large enough to make a prime target. ",
"A lot of the software patents on the books are abstract and overly general. It's practically impossible to write a computer program that is of any use without infringing on someone's patent. Hence, the large companies in the software industry have accumulated portfolios of patents as a defensive measure. If someone sues them for infringement, the chances are that they can counter-sue for infringement on one or more of the patents in their own portfolio. This situation has led to large-scale cross-licensing deals. Most of the major companies in the industry have agreed not to sue each other for patent infringement, because it would only waste a lot of money on lawyers.\n\nAll this leaves small companies and entrepreneurs out of luck. They can't write software without infringing on the big players' portfolios, they don't have the patents to countersue, and they can't afford the lawyers needed to defend themselves.\n\nPatent trolls are companies that have put together a portfolio of patents by buying or licensing them, and try to make money by suing their targets for infringement. These companies have no other business, they don't make or sell any actual products or services. Naturally, they go after targets that have money, so a small-time software entrepreneur is probably mostly safe, at least until his or her business starts to make money. Sometimes the industry majors (e.g. Microsoft) license or sell their patents to apparent troll companies, which seem to be doing the dirty work of going after the patents' original holder's competitors with infringement suits.\n\n**Edit:** One should keep in mind that the original purpose of patents was to foster useful inventions. The current situation with software patents does the exact opposite: it gives the patent portfolio holders a means to drive inventors and competitors out of business.",
"In addition to what Get_a_GOB and da1m adequately wrote, here are two links to news relays showing some real life examples to demonstrate the possible. \n\n* _URL_1_\n* _URL_0_\n"
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53wp47 | advertisements. how do they actually increase sales and influence customers? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/53wp47/eli5_advertisements_how_do_they_actually_increase/ | {
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"One of the big things is brand and product awareness. If you don't know about the product, or what it does, why would you ever buy it? This works on new items, and even on older known items. Always keeping your product top of mind for customers will help create sales.\n\n",
"Here's a great \"experiment\" done showing just how much subliminal messaging and advertisements can affect us. \n\n_URL_0_",
"* As others have noted, **you can't purchase something until you know it exists.** If you think of a traditional sales funnel that moves consumers from awareness to consideration to purchase (there are many versions of sales funnels), this would be advertising for awareness. Not all advertisements expect to generate sales immediately.\n* **Advertising can also make consumers aware of product attributes or benefits.** This may help differentiate a product or service from competitors. Toilet paper exemplifies horizontal differentiation, in which product differences are based on personal preference (soft, strong, etc.) rather than absolute quality. Vertical differentiation separates products by quality (Kia vs. Ferrari), where consumers would always choose one option if all were offered at the same price.\n* **The best advertising connects products to consumer emotions.** This is brand-building advertising and explains why you may see ads that don't talk at all about a product but attempt to connect with consumers emotionally (think of the Lincoln ads with Matthew Mcconaughey). It's also valuable for products like soft drinks or light beer, which many couldn't differentiate in a blind taste test but generate strong, emotional loyalties among consumers.\n\nIn other words, why do you really love Coke? Because you've made a scientific assessment of its merits, or because holiday commercials with polar bears give you the warm fuzzies and revive nostalgic memories from your childhood?"
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4brguu | movie sales and profits question. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4brguu/eli5_movie_sales_and_profits_question/ | {
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"Move tickets are pretty easy, it is generally a 50/50 split between theater and the movies distributor. \n\nDVD/BlueRay/Digital is a little bit more difficult because it depends a lot on the movie and the company. Disney for example does everything in house. So when you buy Star Wars, outside of some kind of cut for the merchant most of that money is going back to Disney.\n\nHowever pretty much every study that has ever looked into piracy's actual effect on the big media's companies has shown that it really doesn't have much effect at all, and if it does it might even be a positive effect. Which is to say, that the sales of media such as moves, songs, TV shows etc. on DVD/BlueRay/Digitial has essentially followed historic trends despite piracy becoming wide spread. \n\nWhich basically means that people who pirate moves are generally people who cannot access it legally at the moment they pirate it or would not have bought it anyway.",
"First of all, don't fall for the \"piracy = lost sale\" fallacy. Content creators such as Disney are naturally going to spin it that way to make themselves look like greater victims of piracy than they are. \n\nSecondly, sales of the TFA Blu-Ray are likely to be far, *far* higher than 250,000 in the first day alone, never mind the first year. \n\nI don't know exactly how the Blu-Ray price gets divided up, but we know large chunks of the $20 will go to the retailers, distributors, and Blu-Ray manufacturers before it gets back to Disney. Once there, more will go to Marketing, and some profit for shareholders and future movies. "
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3byjya | why are all sub moderators locking their subs? how the hell does this help anyone? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3byjya/eli5_why_are_all_sub_moderators_locking_their/ | {
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"It shows that they disapprove of the way they've been treated by the reddit administrators.\n\nKind of like sit-ins during the civil right's movement.",
"Basically, an admin (someone who works for Reddit) has been removed suddenly and without warning. She was very important for setting up ama's, and for some subs was the only point of contact between the people who probably don't know the ins and outs of Reddit and the moderators of the subs (basically volunteers for Reddit that clean it up). \n\nThese moderators say this is the final straw, and that Reddit as a company isn't grateful for their hard work, and don't keep them, the ones who basically run their website, informed. They also say that the tools they use to moderate are outdated, and most moderators need to use third party stuff to help them do the job they have offered to do for Reddit.\n\nSo the moderators have had enough, and they are closing their subs in protest. They want change, and when their closing of the subreddits lowers traffic to Reddit (and therefore lowers profit margins), they hope to see improvement in the way Reddit admins and staff communicate and help moderators (volunteers)."
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dr8t6t | why do you see a light flash (or something like that sensation) when you get hit in the head pretty hard? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dr8t6t/eli5_why_do_you_see_a_light_flash_or_something/ | {
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"The optic nerve stretches from the eyes to the back of the skull, connecting to various brain structures along the way. The bulk of the work done by the optic nerve is done at the rear of the brain, where the signals from the optic nerve are translated into images that we interpret and see. \n\nA hard blow to the head can shake the brain, causing pressure on the optic nerve in this area which can cause random electrical impulses. These random impulses are interpreted by our brain as flashes of light, which is why people say that they're seeing stars after getting hit on the head hard enough."
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j2pov | li5: cricket (the sport). i don't know what i am watching. | Please explain the rules. I watch a game and see players running between sticks. Apparently, games can last for days. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/j2pov/li5_cricket_the_sport_i_dont_know_what_i_am/ | {
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"OK, each side has 11 players (+1 emergency, called the 12th man). Each team is made of specialist batters (the people that run between the wickets ('sticks')), specialist bowlers (the people who bowl (throw) the ball at the batter), and all-rounders who can do everything. There's also a wicket-keeper, who's the guy in 'armour' that crouches behind the batsman that the bowler is bowling to.\n\nThe team that is batting is trying to get as many 'runs' as possible. They do this by hitting the ball around the ground to give themselves enough time to run between wickets before the other team (who are 'fielding') can get the ball back to the wickets. If the wickets are hit with the ball before a batsman can get back to the line in front of it (called a 'crease'), they are 'out' and have to go back to the stands, and get replaced by one of the other batsman on their team. Each batsman only gets one chance per 'innings' - in \"Test\" games each team gets two innings, in the other styles each team only gets one innings. There are always two batsman on the field - whoever is at the end of the 'pitch' (the different coloured area which is where the batsmen run) that the bowler is bowling to is the current batter. Every player gets a bat in each innings, however you generally don't expect much from specialist bowlers, who are often very bad at batting (McGrath, who retired a couple of years ago, was one of the better bowlers in the world, but his batting was a running joke). Once 10 players have had a bat and gone out, the innings is over - this is 1 person short of the full number, but this is because there must be two batsman on the pitch at all times, so if there's only 1 left they can't play.\n\nThe fielding teams wants to get all of the batsmen out as soon as possible to prevent them from making too many runs. There are several ways to do this: The bowler can 'bowl them', in that the batsman at the end fails to prevent the ball from hitting his wicket when the bowler bowls the ball at them. This is an immediate out, and about 40% of people going out (often simply called 'wickets') are from this. One of the fielders might catch the ball on the full after it has been hit by a batter. This is 'caught out', and also puts the batsman immediately out. There is also the 'run out' that we discussed earlier - where the batsman didn't make it back to the 'crease' before a fielder hit the wicket with the ball. This can also be called 'stumped' if the ball went through to the wicket keeper behind the batsman who hit the wickets and the batsman was out of his crease. Finally, there's LBW, which happens when the umpire judges that the ball would have hit the wicket and instead hit the batsman's leg *and nothing else* - it didn't hit the batsman's glove or bat. This is usually the reason that you'll often see bowlers and fielders jumping into the air and yelling - they're 'appealing' to the umpire that there was an LBW.\n\nEach bowler gets an 'over' at a time to bowl - 6 bowls in a row. At the end of each over, the captain picks a new bowler, who will bowl from the opposite end of the pitch. Some styles of cricket have limits on how many overs a bowler can bowl in a game.\n\nAt the end of the game, the side with the most runs wins. What ends a game depends on the style - the most common are 'Test' matches, where the game ends with a win if both teams have completed two innings (although a side can deliberately forfeit an innings, eg. if their opponent didn't make as much in two innings as they did in one) and one team has more than the other, or a draw if the innings aren't complete by the end of the fifth day.\n\nThe other common type is the 'One Day' style, in which each team gets just one innings of 50 overs. This game always ends - if you run out of overs, your innings is over and you have to go with whatever total of runs that you have. This type of game is much more fast paced, as each team races to get as many runs as they can on the board before the time runs out. It still does typically take all day, however.",
"It's like baseball but each batter only gets one at bat in a game. After each batter has batted, the teams switch playing offense and defense.\n\nWhile batting, there are two batters. Once the batter makes contact with the ball, the batters run back and forth switching places as many times as they can. This increases their score.\n\nIf the play ends by the ball being caught or otherwise, an over (out) is recorded and the next batter comes up.\n\nThis cycle repeats until both teams have gone through their lineup one time each."
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218epe | can you just direct any private ship to help with a search and rescue operation? do they get reimbursed? | Through the search and rescue operations for the MH370 (missing Malaysia flight) a number of fishing or transport vessels have been 'directed' to specific areas to help with the operations. Can the government direct any vessel and they have to agree? Do they get compensated? How does this all work? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/218epe/eli5_can_you_just_direct_any_private_ship_to_help/ | {
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"I think it very much depends on where you are sailing. I know that when sailing coastal waters in the UK, you are expected to be ready and able to help people in distress so long as you won't endanger yourself... or something to that effect.\n\nThere are many international conventions for stuff like salvage ops, search and rescue ops, etc. and I think it's up to each state to decide whether they follow them. I think it can get quite messy, though.\n\nSee [this](_URL_0_) link for more details for each specific convention.",
"Ex Merchant Navy.\nIf the coastguard get a distress call they'll call up any merchant ship with enough fuel and survivor capacity and tell you to go get them if they can't respond immediately themselves. I was on big box boats so we could hold about 80 people if push came to shove. All officers have SAR training as a requirement, and if you don't go when the CG tell you, you'll lose your job (you have to radio head office to tell them you're going). Sailors look out for each other. You never know when it'll be you needing an emergency pickup. That being said its really annoying to have to go pick up some rich idiot who decided to take his 20ft yacht out on the Bay of Biscay 'because it was sunny' and then moan about the food. ",
"In the US when you get your merchant Mariner credentials (everyone in the US needs it to commercially operate a boat) they have you sign something. can't remember the wording exactly but it basically says that if the coast guard or similar organization requests your help you will do what the ask. "
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2nqzfs | how does a coat on a husky work ? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2nqzfs/eli5_how_does_a_coat_on_a_husky_work/ | {
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"Lots of mammals, including huskies, have two coats. One is a short dense curly fluffy coat, called down, and the other is made of longer, coarse straight hairs called guard hair. Down helps keep warm dry air close to the skin. The guard hair helps act as a barrier to snow and ice and keeps it away from the skin. \n\n"
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[]
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||
c0zx1x | we figure out the chemical compositions of stars by looking at their wavelengths, but wouldn't this be influenced by red shift? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/c0zx1x/eli5_we_figure_out_the_chemical_compositions_of/ | {
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"Yes, absolutely! But the spectra of the elements within stars aren't just single peaks, they are a series of peaks at very specific wavelengths and spacing. If the star's spectra is shifted (as they usually are) the characteristic pattern can still be detected and the amount of shift then used to calculate the relative movement of said star."
]
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2k2y8r | why do some people on swat teams have on street clothes instead of uniforms? | Most of the time, the pictures of people on a SWAT team have them wearing police uniforms under their tactical gear (vests and helmets), like in [this picture](_URL_1_). After the Ottawa shootings, though, I saw [a picture](_URL_2_) in which the police officers seem to be wearing tactical gear over regular street clothes. There's [another picture](_URL_0_) taken after the Virginia Tech shooting; you can see two police officers in orange VT jackets instead of police uniforms.
Why don't these police officers wear their uniforms? Wouldn't this be dangerous, since any person could then reasonably impersonate a police officer by wearing a vest over their clothing?
EDIT: I don't know why this is being downvoted. They're not plainclothes officers conducting a sting operation—they're members of a SWAT team responding to an emergency. All of the other officers are wearing uniforms, and I want to understand why these ones aren't.
EDIT 2: Thanks for all of the responses, especially from those with a law enforcement background. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2k2y8r/eli5_why_do_some_people_on_swat_teams_have_on/ | {
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"I think some of them weren't on duty when accident happened. They came to the site ASAP and simply there was no time to wear uniforms.",
"Police officer here:\n\nAs with most questions regarding police, the answer is \"it depends\". Not all police officers wear police uniforms. In my department, you only wear a uniform if you're a patrol officer.\n\nSWAT (and other specialized units like K9) officers are usually on \"Standby\" status, which means they can be called in at any time, on or off-duty. They keep thier kit (vest, armor, mags, etc) in the trunk of thier car so they can grab and go if they need to.\n\n\nWhen you see SWAT in full tac gear, it's usually because they were either on duty, or it was a planned raid.\n\nI'm on a specialized unit myself- my unit is responsible for apprehending violent criminals with warrants. We just wear street clothes and tac gear."
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"http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/78464000/jpg/_78464827_pulpfiction.jpg"
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9vgefh | why is the salary for the president and senators comparatively low when accounting for how difficult it is to be elected? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9vgefh/eli5why_is_the_salary_for_the_president_and/ | {
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"These people would happily take the job if it paid $0. So that is the \"market rate\" for it. We are paying way above market rate.",
"Would you take a job for say, $2/hr if it also included a free mansion to live in, private airfare, a private limo, 24/7 security details for you and your family, a world class personal chef, a world-class personal physician, and hundreds of support staff catering to your every whim?",
"The real money comes after the presidency. Speaking at events, book deals, interviews, etc.\n\nNot to mention during their term presidents have very few expenses. Taxpayers foot the bill for travel, housing, security, medical and so on. Also there are the perks of several continued benefits after their term that also cover themselves as well as their immediate family.\n\n"
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5hli2v | why is 80 proof (40% alcohol by volume) the standard alcohol content in most hard liquors? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5hli2v/eli5_why_is_80_proof_40_alcohol_by_volume_the/ | {
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"When a similar question was asked [last year](_URL_0_), it was shown that it's in fact regulated in the US that liquor is bottled at [\"not less than 80 proof.\"](_URL_1_) \n\nMost vendors, therefore, tend to dilute alcohol to the minimum required by law in a major market (that is, 80 proof or 40% ABV), though there's some variation from country to country. ",
"I personally thought it was more for the alcohol equivalency standpoint where a standard shot of alcohol is supposed to have a nearly equal amount to a standard glass of wine and a standard bottle of beer.\n\nFor a beer, 5% of 12 ounces is .6 ounces. For liquor, 40% of 1.5 oz is .6 ounces. For wine, 12% of 5 ounces is, you guessed it, .6 ounces. I assumed that plays a pretty big part in it because how else could the law or doctors say only 2 drinks if the amount of alcohol in the standardized unit of different types weren't equivalent?"
]
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"https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3sa23b/eli5why_is_40_so_common_for_alcohol_content_of/",
"https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/27/5.22"
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||
n1lxs | why do middlemen exist? | If we, as consumers, can buy directly from the source, why would we pay the markup that a middleman charges? I think this is more relevant today because people can easily sell their merchandise directly by opening up a store online, instead of going through a retailer like Amazon. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/n1lxs/eli5_why_do_middlemen_exist/ | {
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"Because running a store takes a lot of work and effort. \n\nSome suppliers do this, but many don't. In a nutshell, they would have to start shouldering responsibilities like inventory management, website management, store front management, shipping orders, customer service (to a larger degree), etc. \n\nBy selling to a middleman to resell, they can avoid the hassles that come with selling direct to customers.",
"In addition to what hooj laid out, some other things:\n\nA misconception here is that it's going to be cheaper for you to buy something directly from the source. This might be true if your source is Ohio. If your source is China, however, you don't even want to know what it would cost you to ship your 1 ipod to your front door. Furthermore, you don't know how to fill out the paperwork to make that possible.\n\nPart of the reason a middleman, or wholesaler, exists, is related to volume. They've got the warehouse to keep large amount of product on hand, and when they order these large amounts from the source, the relative shipping cost per unit gets much, much smaller. Likewise a common buyer will have a shipping account with, say, UPS, which decreases costs based on frequency and volume. \n\nEDIT: These rules apply to product production, as well. Make more, less cost per unit. Not that this really speaks to the middleman.\n\ntl;dr: Large volume shipments decrease per unit costs and keep everyone happy. ",
"Let's say you make widgets. Your widgets are awesome; people will pay thirty bucks for one of your widgets, and it only takes you an hour to make one. Pretty sweet, huh? Thirty bucks an hour ain't bad money at all. So, the only question that remains is: how are you going to get those widgets into somebody's hands?\n\nIf you were to do it yourself, maybe you open up a store online. Now, either you know how to create a website yourself, or else you're going to have to pay someone else to do it for you. Maybe it costs $900 to get a website created and thirty bucks a month to keep it running. That means you're going to have to sell thirty widgets just to cover the site and another widget every month just to break even.\n\n*( All these numbers are made up, by the way )*\n\nIf you're running your own site then you're going to have to pay for some advertising. Let's say you buy some Google Adwords for $150 a month; there's another five widgets worth of money you've paid out.\n\nNow your first order rolls in. Excellent! You've got to buy packaging for your widgets, though, so you can ship them to your customer without them breaking. You've also got to pay for the shipping itself. Maybe it costs five dollars to ship a widget and ten minutes to get it packed up and sent away. Well, that's ten minutes you can't spend making widgets, and you make five bucks in ten minutes if you're widgeting instead of shipping.\n\nYou can see how all these little costs start to add up. Imagine the extra time you'll have to spend answering emails from customers, or handling a return if one of your widgets gets broken in the mail. What do you do when your website crashes? You'll have to pay someone to fix it or spend more of your widget-making time trying to get it to work.\n\nOne day a salesman from Amazon knocks on your door. He tells you that he's heard how cool your widgets are and that he really wants to sell them for you. He makes you a deal: he'll buy your widgets from you for $20, and then sell them on Amazon for $30. You don't earn as much money from each widget, but by the same token you don't have to spend as much time and money doing things you don't really want to do. Plus now your widgets are up on Amazon, one of the most popular websites in the world, and thousands more people are learning about your widgets and placing orders for them.\n\nThat's why companies like to work with middlemen, or what we call *retailers*. They might not make as much money for each widget, but in return for that profit they give up they can concentrate on doing the things they're good at and like to do.",
"Ask my assistant.",
"Because running a store takes a lot of work and effort. \n\nSome suppliers do this, but many don't. In a nutshell, they would have to start shouldering responsibilities like inventory management, website management, store front management, shipping orders, customer service (to a larger degree), etc. \n\nBy selling to a middleman to resell, they can avoid the hassles that come with selling direct to customers.",
"In addition to what hooj laid out, some other things:\n\nA misconception here is that it's going to be cheaper for you to buy something directly from the source. This might be true if your source is Ohio. If your source is China, however, you don't even want to know what it would cost you to ship your 1 ipod to your front door. Furthermore, you don't know how to fill out the paperwork to make that possible.\n\nPart of the reason a middleman, or wholesaler, exists, is related to volume. They've got the warehouse to keep large amount of product on hand, and when they order these large amounts from the source, the relative shipping cost per unit gets much, much smaller. Likewise a common buyer will have a shipping account with, say, UPS, which decreases costs based on frequency and volume. \n\nEDIT: These rules apply to product production, as well. Make more, less cost per unit. Not that this really speaks to the middleman.\n\ntl;dr: Large volume shipments decrease per unit costs and keep everyone happy. ",
"Let's say you make widgets. Your widgets are awesome; people will pay thirty bucks for one of your widgets, and it only takes you an hour to make one. Pretty sweet, huh? Thirty bucks an hour ain't bad money at all. So, the only question that remains is: how are you going to get those widgets into somebody's hands?\n\nIf you were to do it yourself, maybe you open up a store online. Now, either you know how to create a website yourself, or else you're going to have to pay someone else to do it for you. Maybe it costs $900 to get a website created and thirty bucks a month to keep it running. That means you're going to have to sell thirty widgets just to cover the site and another widget every month just to break even.\n\n*( All these numbers are made up, by the way )*\n\nIf you're running your own site then you're going to have to pay for some advertising. Let's say you buy some Google Adwords for $150 a month; there's another five widgets worth of money you've paid out.\n\nNow your first order rolls in. Excellent! You've got to buy packaging for your widgets, though, so you can ship them to your customer without them breaking. You've also got to pay for the shipping itself. Maybe it costs five dollars to ship a widget and ten minutes to get it packed up and sent away. Well, that's ten minutes you can't spend making widgets, and you make five bucks in ten minutes if you're widgeting instead of shipping.\n\nYou can see how all these little costs start to add up. Imagine the extra time you'll have to spend answering emails from customers, or handling a return if one of your widgets gets broken in the mail. What do you do when your website crashes? You'll have to pay someone to fix it or spend more of your widget-making time trying to get it to work.\n\nOne day a salesman from Amazon knocks on your door. He tells you that he's heard how cool your widgets are and that he really wants to sell them for you. He makes you a deal: he'll buy your widgets from you for $20, and then sell them on Amazon for $30. You don't earn as much money from each widget, but by the same token you don't have to spend as much time and money doing things you don't really want to do. Plus now your widgets are up on Amazon, one of the most popular websites in the world, and thousands more people are learning about your widgets and placing orders for them.\n\nThat's why companies like to work with middlemen, or what we call *retailers*. They might not make as much money for each widget, but in return for that profit they give up they can concentrate on doing the things they're good at and like to do.",
"Ask my assistant."
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3860we | what's the strife between british and welsh people? | ELI5: What's the strife between ENGLISH and Welsh people?
edit: Replaced "British" with "English." | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3860we/eli5_whats_the_strife_between_british_and_welsh/ | {
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"Welsh is a term that encompasses the country of Wales, which is part of Great Britain.\n\nBritish is a term that encompasses anyone from any of the countries that make up Great Britain.\n\nIn most usage, British is applied *mostly* to the English. But, regional terms like this are going to be argued every which way.\n\nELI5:\n\nYou can call your dog either \"a dog\" or \"a poodle.\"\n\nPoodle would be Welsh.\nDog would be British. ",
"The Welsh are British. The term applies to everyone who is a citizen of the UK. \n\nThe issue is between the Welsh and the English. It exists because the Welsh were conquered by the English as they formed the British Empire. Some Welsh want to have more power given to their local government and taken away from the UK parliament. ",
"I wouldn't say there's really any \"strife\", and there hasn't been for a long time.\n\nEngland conquered Wales back in the middle ages, and brought it under English law in the 16th Century. For a long time Welsh language and culture was suppressed by the English which obviously caused resentment.\n\nBut that doesn't happen now, and Wales has its own government with powers over various things, particularly policies related to language, culture and education. There is little support in Wales for independence from the UK.\n\nOf course there are jokes about people from different parts of the UK. But most people don't take it too seriously."
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2x7y6k | why doesnt germany have a better or bigger military? especially since it has a larger economy than britain. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2x7y6k/eli5_why_doesnt_germany_have_a_better_or_bigger/ | {
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"After World War 2 both Japan and Germany signed treaties limiting the size of their active military. Japan has a \"self defense force\" that's pretty substantial, but their power is constitutionally limited. ",
"German military has by law only the purpose as a defence force and helping the NATO with conflict prevention.\n\nAlso keep in mind german had until recently a draft, so they have a huge reserve force\n\n\n"
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48eft3 | laser pointers for cats = good / laser pointers for dogs = bad. what is the difference? | A friend said both their vet and dog trainer said that laser pointers we bad for dogs, but fine for cats. Why would there be a difference? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/48eft3/eli5laser_pointers_for_cats_good_laser_pointers/ | {
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"It is a psychological thing. Cats are used to playing catch, they are ok with never catching it. Dogs in other hand have intense instincts about the hunt, and it might me stressful for them when they chase something and never catch it.\n",
"Playing with laser pointers is frustrating for both dogs and cats because they can never \"win\" the \"hunt\". Cats and dogs are very different psychologically - a cat is likely to externalize their frustration, attacking toys/other pets/your ankles and then getting over it. A dog is likely to internalize their frustration, and try harder next time; to the point that they become obsessed with light and shadow, or harm themselves trying to get at that red dot.\n\nPlaying with lasers can be OK if you let your pet get closure - at the end of the play session, point it at a toy or treat they can attack and \"catch\" for a reward."
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afv8nz | why are diseases such as chickenpox and measles more deadly to adults than they are to children? | I can't speak for America, but in the UK children are encouraged to catch chickenpox when they are young as they can recover fairly easily from the disease at that age but would be at much greater risk if they were to contract the disease as adults, but surely our immune systems get stronger with age? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/afv8nz/eli5_why_are_diseases_such_as_chickenpox_and/ | {
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"That’s actually the problem. If the immune response is too strong, it can wear your body down more. The aches and crummy feeling you get when you’re sick aren’t caused directly by the pathogen, they’re a result of what your immune system is doing.",
"Much of the thymus (matures new T cells) degrades when you get older. Harder to react to new diseases. ",
"As far as I am aware, it's not specifically known why. For some reason, adults (and pregnant women, among some other groups) suffer more complications than kids. It's likely to do with how a child's 'inexperienced' immune system deals with the virus compared to an adult - your immune system and responses develop over time as you overcome new infections. Usually this makes your body better at beating bugs, but not always.\n\nAnd to clarify, it's not usually the bug that causes the symptoms and complications - it's the immune response that makes you feel bad. Mostly, it's a trade off for destroying the infection, but sometimes it can go off the rails and cause some self damage.",
"It's the same here in the US as kids we were subjected to the illness one way or the other so it wouldn't be a bigger problem as an adult. ",
"I got the vaccine when I was 4. I avoided the outbreak at my school that came a year later in 1995. (US)",
"I'm sure, just like in America, UK children are encouraged to get a Varicella vaccination and avoid getting Chickenpox altogether.",
"In the US we are by no means encouraged to catch it. I’ve never had it and supposedly once you catch chickenpox you have the shingles virus inside of you",
"I am also curious why glandular fever typically strikes between 17 to 24. Why the upper and lower limit?",
"Sending the kids on play dates to catch a disease - it's a thing here in NYC too... And then there's shingles... a bad case of which makes you wish you were dead.....",
"I also remember 30+ years ago that people would encourage their children to have contact with kids who had active Chickenpox. And I’m in the US.",
"Catching it at a young age just means you can get shingles at an older age. Chickenpox is a herpes virus, so getting it once means you have it in your body forever and it can reactivate later down the road. \n\nVaccination is a better idea than letting your kids get chickenpox. Pox parties used to be fairly common here in the US before the vaccination got big. ",
"This isn't true (in the states), anymore. Kids (and adults who haven't had it) are encouraged to be vaccinated against the chicken pox because having it can lead to shingles in adulthood if your immune system is compromised. It's no longer encouraged to expose anyone to it. Shingles are horrible.\nEdit: Clarifying that kids can also get shingles after getting the chicken pox, not just adults.\nEdit again: Yes. You can get shingles if you've had the chicken pox vaccine but it's FAR more rare. Get vaccinated.",
"Natural selection will weed out pathogens that trigger highly aggressive immune responses. The most likely pathogens to survive are those that spread easily and kill slowly. We are always selecting against those 2 traits.",
"I had a horrendous case of chicken pox when I was a kid. You know how they told you not to scratch them because they'll burst and scar you? That terrified me, so I didn't scratch. Many of the boils burst on their own and I have dozens of pox scars on my chest, arms, and face.\n\nSo my takeaway here is fuck chicken pox in the ass sideways.",
"I remember as a kid with chickenpox, I was happy. I didn't feel that bad and I got to spend a week home from school and watch cartoons. It was worth the trade-off. Crazy that it can kill adults. Also I still have two scars from my time with the pox.",
"This is somewhat unrelated but just want to share. I have an uncle who is blind due to chickenpox when he was a kid. I find it hard to believe until I ask my mom how did he get treated. During old day medicine are hard to get and my grandmother ask the local shaman doctor to treat my uncle. The treatment involve using tamarind as medicine. Altho this sound shady as fuck, it end up curing my uncle chickenpox. However, he lost his eyesight due to that treatment. Today you can easily get treated without risking life and please for your own sake get a proper treatment. ",
"I'd also like to know this. My sister caught Chickenpox when she was 7, and passed it onto 15 year old me. I had to take a tablet six times a day because I was older.",
"I had chickenpox when I was 23. Apart from looking like something that crawled out of the Chernobyl sarcophagus, I didn't feel that unwell to be honest.",
"Imagine viruses as intruders, and our cells as buildings. Our immune system deals with viruses by destroying the building, preventing the viruses from entering any other building. \nWhen we are young, our immune systems are not so strong, so the attack is limited, affecting a few buildings. \nAs we grow older, our immune system becomes stronger, catching more buildings in the cross fire, with more severity. ",
"I contracted chickenpox 2 years ago when I was 25. By the time I got to hospital I was told it was too late to start any medication to reduce symptons. I sat for 2 days in my room soo ill i couldnt open my eyes or sleep, I had spots everywhere including eyelids. This was the worst ive ever felt in my life. After 2 days I was fine but took 3 weeks for spots to clear. 2 years later my scars have finally healed. Minus one on my head but its not too visible. But my experience was light compared to other stories ive read. ",
"Your immune system is too strong as an adult, it can kill you, or at least, overheat to the point of brain damage.\n\nThis is why Ebola is crazy, it's a virus that infects small mammals, when a human gets it, the virus wants to increase the temperature, like in a bat, and it's pathogenic effect is a fever. Then the body tries to kill it with fever. This is way too much and then you end up with multisystem organ failure as your proteins denature (cooked from the inside out).\n\nYour immune system can kill you, when it goes out of whack it causes auto immune problems, like Lupus. ",
"People encourage children to catch diseases? Ever heard of vaccines? Here one or two generation earlier without them not everyone made to maturity.",
"Anyone who suggests \"pox party\" should be shot on spot. Vaccine exists and is safe and effective. It costs £130 though (for two shots) ",
"One of the theories is that we become more susceptible to measles and such since our phagocytes start to weaken once we're out of our teenage years. \n\n\nConsider the immune defense like an army of pokemons. They all have different attacks, and their attacks are effective against different types of enemies. Now, one of those types of pokemons is the Phagocyte that eats enemies, and against measles that attack is Super Effective. However, as we get older phagocytes get slower and weaker. Now if we get measles when we're young, we can evolve our phagocyte pokemons to into a type that even when it's old and slow our phagocytes are effective against measles. But if we've never had measles they're a much more difficult opponent when you finally face off against them. So instead we vaccinate against measles, which means that instead of fighting full health enemies the first time the enemies we fight have been weakened, so that the fight is easier. Then the first time we fight full strength enemies of that type we already have evolved pokemons ready for battle.",
"So your immune system has a clunky [innate system](_URL_0_) that just sweeps the floors. Then you have a complimentary [adaptive system](_URL_1_) that chases and intelligently eliminates dust bunnies.\n\nThe old clunky system originates in your hips, the new one in your neck. The one in your neck slowly degrades as you age. So the older you are, the weaker it is.\n\nBut the smart system can also remember certain dust bunnies, and the tricks they use to escape capture. So not only do you want to make use of it while it's stronger; but it will develop a \"memory\" for the bunnies you introduce to it. In this case, the dust bunny is chickenpox. ",
"I don't think it 'standard' thinking now, but when I was a child, it was a victory if you were able to get the chicken pox, measles [both] and the mumps during childhood. I had all of them before age 10; each illness was mild, comparatively speaking, and I recovered quickly.",
"I saw this first hand. My ex-husband, 8 year old, 2 year old all had chicken pox at the same time.\n\n2 year old barely had any symptoms or spots.\n\n8 year old had it pretty good. Lots and lots of itchy spots. Pretty miserable.\n\nMy ex-husband was sooo sick. He had spots everywhere and felt like death. We called the clinic and they snuck him in the back entrance to have a look. His doctor even brought in another doctor to have a look because he was so bad lol. Poor guy.\n\n\nEdited to add this was almost 20 years ago now and chicken pox vaccine wasn't around quite yet here.\n",
"IANAD. That said, I've had shingles, which is the same virus as the chickenpox, and that has offered me some opportunity to learn about this subject. \n\nBasically, in as most EILI5 terms as possible (mostly because that's more or less how it was explained to me), the chickenpox virus moves around in your body and can affect different parts of the body, doing very different things depending on where it takes hold. In the skin, it's called chickenpox and just looks like a rash. But our immune system is able to fight it off, and it retreats deeper into our body and hibernates in our nervous system. Your funny bone is an example of a nerve. If it wakes up while it's in a nerve, it'll hurt like something hitting your funny bone, but it won't stop for hours at a time. These nerves can be anywhere on your body, even across your face, and that is called shingles when it emerges like that. \n\nMost people's immune systems can't actually defeat the virus for good, only make it retreat for a long time. Then it shows up again. As people get older, their immune systems are weaker, but the virus is just as strong as ever, sometimes stronger when it comes back. If someone is old and hasn't ever had chickenpox, then their immune system is not only weak, but it also has never learned how to fight that virus. That's why it doesn't do a very good job fighting it and can sometimes do more damage fighting than the virus would do on its own.",
"Pulmonologist here. The biggest issues with adults is that they are more likely than children to develop pneumonia due to the virus. Viral pneumonias occur in children and they generally do well with them, but viral pneumonias in adults can be deadly. Adults who get influenza these days can get pnuemonia on top of that, but it is most frequently a ***bacterial*** **suprainfection** (because their resistence is lowerted by the viral infection) and not directly due to the flu virus**.** Occasionally, adults may get pneumonia from the influenza virus directly and that can be deadly. Simply put...viral pneumonia in adults is a serious, life-threatening issue, and this is why you want to either be vaccinated or infected by these bugs as a kid and not an adult.",
"Your body generates natural titers (antibodies) at an early age when attacked by those pathogens, so when it is attacked again you will have a higher chance of being protected. Later in life, your body doesn’t have those natural antibodies so to fight against chickenpox will require more, just because of aging on the immune system; seroconversion rates are lower",
"A good immune system has many different types of cells. One ‘serious, last resort’ type of cell the body uses is the neutrophil. \n\nA neutrophil acts like a wide-area explosive that, when meeting the target pathogen, self destructs to cause immediate death of the pathogen BUT ALSO causes the death of a bunch of healthy, in-use cells in the same area. \n\nThis is a calculated risk the body makes, like throwing a frag grenade (or 5) in your own home to hopefully get rid of 10 armed robbers hanging out in a room together. All your stuff is ruined and needs to be replaced, but at least you get your house back. \n\nWhen a person has billions of neutrophils in their body that get the signal to do their thing... you can imagine the effects. Sometimes, you (the house) barely survive!\n\nIronically, the healthier you are, the more numerous and robust your neutrophil count is. This is one of the main reasons Ebola is so deadly, it confuses your neutrophils into attacking the body. Healthier people are more damaged internally because of this, while an immunodeficient person (child/elderly person) may have a better chance. \n\nI should point out that VERY FEW pathogens and viruses can manipulate your own immune system in this way, and for almost every case, our immune system is more cunning and powerful (and vaccinated, in order to recognize invaders on sight, instead of inviting them to dinner) than 99.99% of the bad stuff. \n\nGet vaccinated! It’s like uploading a whole gun library into your body instead of relying on the family pistol your mom & dad gave you. \n\nEdit: Holy moly my first ever medal!! :D Thank you kind stranger!",
"I had it when I was 14. So sick I missed a month of school. Plus it invaded my spinal cord causing myelopathy and pain when walking. Fortunately I recovered from that. Get your vaccine folks!",
"I am sitting here in my bed on day 8 of adult chickenpox at age 35 and I can tell you that if you haven't had it you should go get the vaccine. It's the worst illness I've ever had, and I had malaria, e-coli, salmonella, shigella, and at least one mystery illness while serving in the peace corps in west africa, and I also had terrible mono and pneumonia here in the states. \n\nI'm not sure what the long lasting effects of my scarring will be. I had to get IV treatment on Friday, and the last week has been absolute hell on earth. Please, save yourselves this hell of pain and lost wages, etc. and consider the vaccine. If I had to do it over I would have gotten it.",
"I believe someone has said it already, but Spanish flu is the perfect example.\n\nIt killed the highest numbers of those who should've been the most resilient.\nSpanish flu takes hold in the lungs, your immune system decides is needs to purge it by any means necessary and so starts destroying your own lungs. Killing infected cells to kill the infection inside them. The result is that your lungs fill with fluid and you \"drown\".\n\nThe symptoms of illness are your body fighting back, not the illness itself. Most often when someone dies from an illness it's because their body went too far in its attempts to eradicate it. In ebola cases it's the cytokine storm.\n\nIs simple terms, imagine a zombie outbreak in two towns. One is rich, one is poor.\nIn the rich town, they use SWAT teams and we'll equipped soldiers to stop the zombies from spreading, but realising there are too many zombies, they torch the houses to kill all the zombies - destroying the town and the zombies. (Dead)\nIn the poor town they don't have as many soldiers, and there not as well equipped. They certainly can't blow the whole town up. So they just do their best with what they've got. It takes much longer but eventually they clear out the zombies. Rebuilding the damaged buildings will take longer but they're still standing. (Not dead)",
"When you're young, you have a huge amount of white blood cells that basically just beat everything with numbers. \n\nBy the time you're an adult, your white blood cells know what's a cold, what's chickenpox, etc. Your bodily resources are better spent maintaining the larger and more complex adult body. This is the difference between a large unorganized army, or a small well-organized army. \n\nSome viruses set off every alarm in your body, and your immune system sends out every soldier it can and puts all resources into making more. This means that the rest of your body is not able to do it's normal work and you can die.\n\nSome viruses set off alarms in your own base, and when your soldiers finish attacking it, any other virus can just walk right in (HIV/AIDS)\n\nSome things like chickenpox are easily beaten once you know their weak point, and kids have so many white blood cells that they easily find it and then spread that information around and kill the virus. Or you can enter a cheat code via chickenpox vaccine to unlock chickenpox knowledge for your white blood cells.\n\nSome things like the flu change their shape and weak point. Most of the time, your white blood cells still figure it out and have no problem, but sometimes they don't realize it's the flu and your body has to fight it like before. It's why you need to keep getting the flu shot.",
"Immune system mounts a stronger immune response. Herpes 4 aka Epstein-Barr aka mono is the same way. If you get it as a kid, it’s no big deal. As an adult, you’re out for weeks. The more mature your immune system is, the bigger of a response you can have, which means more symptoms that could be potentially dangerous to the human. ",
"I had chickenpox when I was 17 years old. I had blisters all over me, even in my mouth, ears and scalp. The doctor wanted to refer me to a hospital for infectious diseases. He said I needed 24 hour care. But my mum saw this as an opportunity for time off work. She informed the Dr that she would provide the 24hr care. Skiver that she is!! I contracted the virus via my younger niece. ",
"We used to do that in the US. Now we all get the chickenpox vaccine. You don’t have that in the UK?",
"I fell ill with chickenpox when i was around 22.\n\n I had a girfriend with a young child at the time and he came down with a case of it.\n\nI live in the UK, the doctors is just round the corner, so I decided to carry him in.\n\nNo big deal, he is fine and will get over it in a week or so.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nThis is my fuckup.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nI had never had Chickenpox, then i saw a blister on my chest and they just started appearing all over me, I called the Doctor and he cleared the entire surgery and got me in there, gave me some strong drugs to get it out of me. \n\n\nIt could of killed me. \n\n\nDoc saved me.\n\n & #x200B;\n\nIt cleared on my birthday but I was still covered in poc marks, I had a Job interveiw that day, I looked a mess but I did it anyway, got the Job. \n\n\nWent for a beer.",
"Chicken pox is a disease that u can get only once in a lifetime. Once u catch it your body will develop immunity against it.\n\nBut why in childhood? Reason is a structure present in your body called thymus.\n\nThymus is a structure present just behind and below where your tie knot would rest just underneath the bone that you can feel. Thymus is involved in training the white blood cells in recognising foreign stuff and differentiating them from stuff that belong to our own body. So if u catch an infection that isn’t going to be severe early in your life, you will have better immunity, meaning that your body will be able to recognise even smaller quantities of chicken pox virus in the body and mount an immune response against them.\n\nIf I can get chicken pox once in a lifetime, how does this matter?\n\nThe part hat I didn’t tell you was that the chicken pox virus goes dormant and stays in your body and gets activated if your immune system goes down for any reason(for e.g., if u develop diabetes and it goes uncontrolled later in ur life or you develop a different viral infection some other time that brings down your white blood cell count), and this is called shingles and not chicken pox. This can produce lot of pain in areas wherever you develop the shingles rash. So if u have an immune system that is completely trained against the chicken pox virus(varicella-zoster virus), it will attack virus much earlier before it can turn into full blown shingles.\n\nAs everybody knows, a kid’s immune system is relatively less competent compared to adult immune system. That is why they insist on catching infections that don’t cause significant morbidity. Chicken pox is a self limiting viral infection. Just keep those rashes clean, and don’t allow for secondary bacterial infection. You will be good to go.\n\nCorrect me if I am wrong. This was what I read in my book.\n\n"
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1mcgcr | what causes the sound you hear when two people harmonize? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1mcgcr/eli5what_causes_the_sound_you_hear_when_two/ | {
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"Do this:\n\nCount in your head 1, 2, 3, 4, nice and even, over and over.\n\nNow tap your right foot on 1.\n\nNow tap your left foot on 1 and 3.\n\nPretty easy for you feet to fall into a nice pattern, right? That's what happens when you harmonize, the soundwaves fit together in a nice pattern.\n\nStart over.\n\nTap your right foot on 1.\n\nTap your left foot every 3rd beat.\n\nThat's pretty hard, and it doesn't make a real nice pattern. That's what happens when two sounds are out of harmony."
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bi14z2 | how do machines learn? | Machine learning has been booming lately and there was a lot of buzz around them. I would like to know how do machines learn from data or from themselves as stated by their creators. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bi14z2/eli5_how_do_machines_learn/ | {
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"TL;DR Trial and Error\n\nSo there are many different kinds of AI and machine learning algorithms, but the basic idea is the same.\n\nProgrammers can solve a lot of problems, but some problems are just really hard and involve too many variables to efficiently figure out on our own. Things like how to make a robot walk, or all the variables involved in facial recognition.\n\nInstead, a program starts with some random configurations that don't work very well at all. But they're somehow told how they're wrong (depending on the exact method) and which general direction to adjust (this can include thousands of numbers that need to change). The next time the machine tries, it's just a little bit better. Given enough training, the machines can get pretty good.\n\nOf course, this training requires input for which we already know the output. For making a robot walk it's pretty easy, either it walks or it doesn't, or it walked a certain distance or cleared a certain obstacle. For facial recognition (e.g. determining if 2 faces are the same) we can take a bunch of images of faces, some are of the same person and some aren't, and either the machine correctly identifies they are/not the same or it's wrong."
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36akmk | why don't more countries try to copy the nordic countries? | Denmark, Sweden, Finland & Norway rank consistently high in quality of life and happiness surveys...
Why aren't more countries trying to emulate there success?
Why aren't they copying (and improving on) wants proven to work? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/36akmk/eli5_why_dont_more_countries_try_to_copy_the/ | {
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"Many of the things that make those countries great are government programs. Where do they get the funding for those programs?\n\nHigh taxes. Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for better programs and a higher tax, but not many others are on that same page.",
"Politicians wants power. Not high quality of life for people. They don't give a shit, and as long as you keep re-electing htem, why should they?",
"I'm from Denmark, and yes, we do have quite high taxes. But that doesn't mean that all of our money goes to waste. Our money goes to our own benefits. We have free healthcare. Transportation is free for a small amount per month. And next year, they will improve transportation with 803 million euros. And that's only around Aarhus, the second biggest city in Denmark.",
"they are nearly homogenous societies.\nmost other countries in the first world are heterogenous and therefore will never have the same standard of living as nordic countries.\n",
"Because they haven't found the secret of life. They are small underpopulated countries with a lot of money. It's not a stretch that rich safe people with lots of funding for nice things will be happy.",
" Population(million) Land Mass (sqkm)\n Denmark: 5.5 42.5k\n Finland 5.4 303.8k\n Norway: 5.08 304k\n Sweden: 9.5 407k\n US: 318.9 9.147 Million\n\nYou try getting 318 Million people over 9.147 Million Sqkm to agree on anything....\n"
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2rlnyl | what is happening when i feel a "cute overload" when i see puppies, baby animals, etc.? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2rlnyl/eli5_what_is_happening_when_i_feel_a_cute/ | {
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"Well, this is known as \"cute aggression\" (_URL_1_ ; _URL_0_) and I've posted on this before in ELI5, so I'm just going to quote what I said the last time as an elaboration for you:\n\n > Basically to simplify, this phenomenon does appear to exist in significant proportions of the population (so hopefully that may validate your feelings; you ain't wierd). Cuteness so overwhelms our emotions, that to these individuals' brain it is a sign of dysregulation and it will work/sabotage you into thinking the reverse to bring back a sort of emotional/nervous stability (or balance to the force, heh). As such, the brain will send out feelings of aggression in order to counteract this feeling of overwhelming care you feel, and that makes you want to eat babies and puppies.\n\nIn your case, you might not immediately feel like eating them just yet, but your brain already knows itself to be uncomfortable enough to give you this \"overload\" feeling like you can't stand it anymore, which makes you only one step away from being a baby and puppy killer. Congratulations!"
]
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"http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/so-cute-i-could-eat-it-the-science-behind-cute-aggression-9860440.html",
"http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/releases/tears-of-joy-may-help-us-maintain-emotional-balance.html"
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5hrozp | why is some medicine taken orally, intravenous, anally, etc.? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5hrozp/eli5_why_is_some_medicine_taken_orally/ | {
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"Because some medications would be digested if they are taken orally and wouldn't work. Anal stuff is usually because you're trying to treat an anal problem or there are other reasons why the person can't swallow. IV medications also generally work faster than oral medications since you don't have to wait for it to absorb and sometimes better because you can get higher concentrations in the blood by putting it directly into the blood"
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5qhjgy | how do missiles like iron dome chase their target? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5qhjgy/eli5_how_do_missiles_like_iron_dome_chase_their/ | {
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"Unlike in anime, sci fi, and action movies, missiles do not \"chase\" their targets. They use sensors and math to predict the path of their target, and go to the point where their path intercepts the target path. They are also generally designed that when they get to the intercept point and explode, that they do not have to make a direct hit. What they do is throw enough shrapnel to destroy anything within a certain radius of the warhead.",
"Missiles have four common methods of tracking\n\nActive: Missile has an onboard radar and uses it to track the target after launch (more advanced aircraft missiles and surface to air missiles have these)\n\nSemi active: Missile has an onboard radar and is receiving information from the ground radar as it's signal is bouncing off the target\n\nSemi active ground guidance: missile and radar both track the target, ground station makes final decision on what and where the target it\n\nPassive: IR and TV missiles track heat and changes/differences therein to find the target\n\nHowever, that was all extra stuff lol. I think the Iron Dome uses proportional navigation. Like the previous comment, it triangulates where the ground is, where it is, and were the the target is going to be and makes adjustments every few seconds. Since missiles don't react to threats (how would it see them) this is an effective counter missile guidance method."
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2fbs8f | why do some people cut their skin when they're stressed/depressed? what does that do for them? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2fbs8f/eli5_why_do_some_people_cut_their_skin_when/ | {
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"It's a release for them. ",
"Pain causes endorphin and dopamine to be released, which causes euphoria, joy and kills the pain. It's the body's natural response to injury.",
"It gives them control over their lives when they may have none over other aspects. It also can be a cry for help. And it releases dopamine, which is always nice.",
"When I was self harming, I did it because when I was depressed I felt like I had a build up of emotional pressure under my skin, mainly at my wrists. So I would cut to relieve this pressure. It's hard to explain to someone who hasn't experienced the sensation.\n\nI know sometimes I would just cut because when I was at the height of my depression, I cut because I simply wanted to control some of the pain that I was feeling inside.",
"When the skin is cut, the body releases endorphins, which are essentially natural morphine.\n\nAlso, some people just do it for the attention."
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6xbo03 | how people like joel osteen are amass such a big fortune and build megachurches on the name of religion? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6xbo03/eli5_how_people_like_joel_osteen_are_amass_such_a/ | {
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"Religion is a *very* profitable business. Donations for prayers for \"healing\". Donations for prayers for \"success\". A lot of this is covered under \"prosperity gospel\". Basically send money to the church, the pastor will put in a good word with the man upstairs, and He will bless you with fame and fortune. ",
"Joel Osteen somewhat inherited the Lakewood Church from his dad (and then Joel took it from 5,000 to 50,000). He gets a lot of money from book sales, he knows a thing or two about TV production, and he's got charisma and charm and people want to hear him. He's an actor in many senses, and he's good at what he does.\n\nedited to add parenthetical and TV comment"
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8rfqie | how do 'binural beats' actually effect our brains? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8rfqie/eli5_how_do_binural_beats_actually_effect_our/ | {
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25pbrq | why are subreddits like /r/rapingwomen and /r/cutefemalecorpses accepted and what kind of people go there? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/25pbrq/eli5_why_are_subreddits_like_rrapingwomen_and/ | {
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"For the most part, oppressing speech only hurts. There are better ways to influence behavior.",
"Because, as I understand it, part of Reddit's ethos is complete, unfettered free speech. What that means is that you take the bad with the good.\n\nOnce you start deciding what's acceptable and what's not, you introduce subjectivity into the mix. Personally, I'm happy to see the scum go up in smoke, whether they're legit or just trolling for shock, but for better or worse, Reddit stays true to its roots, and that means that if the material itself isn't illegal, it stays.\n\nAs for the kind of people who go there; I'd say an even split between the very damaged and the very curious (hey, you checked it out, right?)\n\n**EDIT: Since some muppets can't seem to grasp the difference between Reddit and individual subs, I'll spell it out: You can't go into someone else's house and speak with impugnity. You *can* create your own house and speak with impugnity, so long as your content is legal. Whatever you have to say, you *are* free to say it on Reddit, even if that means you have to create your own sub. It's equivalent to a journal refusing to include your essay in their publication; you can always publish and distribute your own publication.**\n\n**Voting is not censorship, in that it does not suppress the information to the extent that it is unavailable, it merely makes it less visible with respect to other information.**\n\nI understand the Jailbait/CreepShots thing; there's an argument to be made that it contained/specifically attracted content that could be found unlawful, if it ever came down to it (have you looked at the wording of child pornography laws in the US?) Whether or not that's an \"excuse\", it's a possibility that it was genuine. That's self-preservation and compliance with local law, not censorship per se (assuming I remember the legislation correctly)",
"Why!? Why did morbid curiosity cause me to check those subs?\n\nDamn, some people are strange. strange people go there.",
"1. Reddit is a corporation, it has a set of ideals however free speech is not one of them, they have no obligation to free speech\n\n2. Reddit has banned bad subreddits but only when they create negative publicity, those subreddits are not as popular so \n\n3. It is hard to tell the difference between, a joke and reality on reddit. Take the North Korean subreddit. This is similar to comedians telling rape jokes.",
"The highest rated post on r/raingwomen has only 90 upvotes (and is just [an attempt at edgy humour](_URL_0_))\n\nI'd say that subreddit is not nearly as bad as it tries to be, and not 'accepted' but rather, unknown. ",
"Aaaaaaaand now I have to clear my internet history...",
"/r/RapingWomen and /r/cutefemalecorpses",
"very few things actually make my jaw drop, but the corpses one did..and now i need to go stare at aww for a few hours and look at pictures of my 2 yr old niece just to get back to normal",
"I'm pretty sure they are not accepted, but they are tolerated under the notion of free speech. ",
"so now those are on my history, reddit is definitely going to get me arrested some day",
"I went to see what was happening. Them fuckers ain't right ",
"I could've gone my whole life not knowing these existed...",
"OP, and others... Let ME ask YOU a question.\n\nBefore I do I should make it clear that I don't support, nor go there.\n\n* Does it offend you?\n* Does it upset you?\n* Does it make you angry?\n* Does it annoy you?\n\nIf you answered Yes to any of these questions, that is the exact reason why. They're troll subreddits designed to anger and annoy people.",
"Jesus christ this is how I learned about /r/eatingwomen . ",
"I think it's easy to say it's just freaks and perverts. But I think that's an oversimplification.\n\nI'm a new EMT and I was worried about seeing gore having a devastating emotional and psychological effect on me. So I sought out gore sights to kind of challenge myself, to discover the boundaries of my comfort levels.\n\nI think our relationships to death and sex are some of the most complex aspects of humanity, and due to the strictures of society there are dark corners that we are not allowed to illuminate.\n\nSo for me, looking at gore shines a light on those dark corners, and I learn something about myself.\n\n\"I feel weird seeing a dead Iraqi child, is this just sadness and shock? Would I feel that way if I saw this as a medic, what if this kid was a different race, would I have a different reaction?\"\n\"This murdered girl is actually really pretty, does that make it more tragic? Is finding her attractive a mental reflex or is it sexually engaging for me?\"\n\"Am I bad person for feeling a little excited by the strangeness of seeing brains, and organs spilling out of a body?\"\n\nI may just be a sick bastard, but I also think I've learned a lot about the workings of my brain.\n\n\n",
"Just went on /r/rapingwomen. Accepted is not a word I would use for those people. They are the type of person you would cross the street if you saw coming. ",
"Just went on both of them and they are really fucked up. I don't see how they are accepted. ",
"Wait, a minute. Your telling me there is fucked up stuff on the internet?!? And some of it is on Reddit!?! Next your gonna say not everyone on reddit is great with grammar and spelling. ",
"Wow. RapingWomen is really horrible. I mean, I KNOW there are people out there who might find this OK, but seeing it so concentrated in one place is hard to have looked at. cutefemalecorpses is just childish attempts to be crass. Successful attempts, but childish nonetheless.",
"1. Go there to see what kind of people they are. \n\n2. If you don't like a small subreddit, probably don't advertise it on a very large, well-read subreddit. I bet you drew a few hundred people to both of those subreddits, just by putting them in your title.",
"I'm not sure, but after visiting /r/RapingWomen for the first time I stumbled upon this awesome conversation between someone who frequents that sub and a normal person:\n\n_URL_0_\n\nBest \"comment justice\" I've ever read.",
"For the record, and I feel like I can speak for every sane, level-headed man on the planet in this respect, /r/RapingWomen and /r/cutefemalecorpses are most definitely **not** accepted.",
"Because Reddit does not exist for your comfort. It should not enforce any moral code. That is the job of the subreddits.",
"I think it's refuge in obscurity more than anything. There are an insane amount of subreddits, so some of them are bound to fly under the radar.",
"I assume its because admins believe in a democracy and don't ban subreddit unless they pose a threat such as doxxing or as /r/knuckledeepinpublic having minors posted in sexual acts. /r/greatapes is a racist subreddit but they don't witchhunt. They are disgusting but don't break reddit rules.",
"Why? Because.\nBecause some people have rape fantasies.\nBecause some people are into necrophilia.\nBecause some people like things that gross you out.\n\nBut, things shouldn't be banned simply because you don't like it. If that were the case, EVERYTHING would be banned.",
"From the tone of the question, I assume Op doesn't approve of those subreddits. It's ironic that this post actually proliferates them.",
"I think the fact that all the posts are hate speeches or deleted says more about how people view the guys that go there than the people there. If you wanted to know what kind of guys went there, go there and read some posts by the regulars. From what I can briefly read they're just a combination of edgey kids and fetishists.",
"Holy shit. [WHAT WAS SAID HERE??!!](_URL_0_)",
"Wtf happened to the top comments?",
"Bring on the deleted comments",
"I think its because freedom of speech on the internet needs to be expressed, and this is one of the **safe** ways to do it, and therefore its tolerated.\n\nUsing your freedom of speech to speak out on political or historical issues on the other hand, well....you get banned, shadowbanned, etc.",
"I'm pretty sure any of those subreddit's would be illegal for me to enter here in Norway.. ",
"I'll bite. I am one of those people. \n\nBefore I offer reasons or sob stories of my past or insight or anything of the sort, there are a few replies I want to highlight that I believe are not true about why the reddits are accepted and what kind of users go there.\n\n > I'd say that subreddit is not nearly as bad as it tries to be, and not 'accepted' but rather, unknown.\"\n\nNot true because, the \"danger\" is still there due to the crazy people, as with all groups that share a dangerous hobby. Think Erotic asphyxiation/masochists. The rape subreddit was known to me due to my fetish. While I alone is not enough proof, saying its unknown is untrue. \n\n > They're troll subreddits designed to anger and annoy people.\n\nWhile I am sure there are trolls who post content for the purpose of shock and troll value, dismissing the entire group as troll is false. A simple example is users who go for content, such as I. \n\nThere also many answers here that are true and all have valid points. Many are freedom of speech and reddit's \"obligation\" to protect all forms of interests. blah blah blah. These defenses are used whenever people object to interests they find offensive and ask why they are allowed. \n\nThose reasons work fine and all, but I have a more personal reason why I think and believe those reddits (and any offensive interest for that matter) should be allowed. I want to point out that I had a normal, non traumatic childhood and that I have **NEVER** hurt anyone nor could I possibly think of doing so. (most serious fight I got into was getting jumped by two punks when I stood up to the kid they bullied) Loving mother, caring Dad, he cheated but what family makes it through all the way? No abuse beyond some physical punishment I would not say were overly aggressive. How the fuck did I somehow end up with a rape fetish? There are billions of possible reasons, mommy issues, Oedipus complex, living under the rule of a strong women/older sister whatever. I wasn't able to figure it out why, but I could understand that these desires weren't normal. I understood at that young age you wouldn't want to do these things. It was simple to see I would not want to wish this on any of my female/male loved ones. This left me struggling to live with myself. Religion dictated I was evil. I didn't feel evil.... Society said I was unfit and not acceptable to be a part of the general population. Women? Girlfriends? FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK that. How could anyone love someone as fucked up as I? Cue the years of depression, self loathing, lack of self esteem, image issues. I viewed myself as a monster. Internet and certain women in my life saved me. I went online and found relief, and I sickened myself when I first masturbated to a rape fantasy. But those women were actresses? I dived into this territory every \"sane\" person says is evil and should not be explored. These women, those interviews, their curiosity... those men, their frankness in discussing these fetishes..... where did these people live? How can they stand themselves? It dawned on me that having these interests does not equate into a horrible unfit person for society. Fast-forward, some image adjustments, my live has improved and I have opened up about my fetish to those closest around me. Those unable to accept I did not judge, and merely ended the relationship for the better of both of us. My family knows, and my GF is totally fine with it. In fact, she is more willing to do the BDSM/Rape roleplay than I am. If the pain seems to real to me, I get nervous and stop. \n\nIt seems like a very long post about my life, but its not for me that I write this. My own experiences were proof to me that its not just traumatic childhood experiences that cause those deviant interests. I did not get raped as a child as Throwaway5478534 said in his/her post. I did not have that reason to justify to myself why I had those thoughts. Its hard enough for rape victims to come to terms with having those fantasies themselves. \n\nI am not trying to saying I had it harder, but what I will say, is I had the fortune and good luck to have a good life, and the internet to help me understand where these thoughts come from. I think of the children who do not have such luck or tools. I think of children who live in oppressive lifestyles due to culture/customs/religion/society whatever the reasons. I think of children who are unable to internalize their issues as long as I did. (School Shooters? I am sure they had their own issues.) Is this why you read about those violent outbursts? The murderous rampage? The serial murderers and rapists who internalized their fetishes cause it wasnt acceptable but lacked the family support/values/ability to come to terms with their fantasies? \n\nSorry for writing so much. I will try to conclude it here. The point is, if not accept it, what is the alternative? Ban? Vilify and denounce unlawful anything to do those topics? I am to living proof to myself, that I was not taught those thoughts. What happens to the future kids like me? People killed others and themselves to keep homosexuality a secret just a few years ago. Where do you draw the line between whats acceptable to be interested in and whats not? Is censorship really the answer? Now the disclaimer, I don't pretend to know that censorship is the wrong answer and to allow everything is correct. I just want to say that, knowledge that others shared this interest and were able lead healthy and fulfilling lives was PARAMOUNT to me becoming ok with who I am. I know I will never hurt or do anything to another person, for the fulfillment of any desire. So when I ask myself, which world is better? A society that censors anything it deems unacceptable, or a society where ALL consensual interests, platonic to sickening, if consensual, is not judged by society and you are free to experiment, I would rather have the latter. A child with an interest he may be embarrassed about or feel he should not have would flourish in the latter society. To live in one where a certain group of people decides where the line should be, and when it should be applied doesn't sound good to me.\n\nSorry for wall of text. It was important to me. I will probably never read this again.",
"ok, came here and had to checkout the subs cos i didn't think they were real.\nrapingwomen seems to just be immaturely making inappropriate jokes about rape (dunno only clicked on 2 links)\n\nWhere as cutefamlecorpses is well and truly messed up, different people different kicks i suppose just hope those images are fake tbh",
"We can go on and on about how \"disgusting\" these people are, but what problem does banning them solve? Having a disgusting fetish isn't illegal as far as I know. There's lots of things that I don't condone on the internet, but playing this stupid cat and mouse game trying to find all the rapists isn't going to work. If people want to jack off to this shit instead of going out to rape people, that's cool with me.",
"Wow so they are a thing. DO NOT GO THERE SIMBA!",
"I just spent a few minutes at /r/cutefemalecorpses, it is sooo wrong and sad. man, people should avoid inadvertently advertising such sites."
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eado82 | how catholicism came to be? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/eado82/eli5_how_catholicism_came_to_be/ | {
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2c527x | what is involved in a bone marrow transplant? | Clearly I'm no doctor, but I generally understand what an organ transplant or blood transfusion is. What is a bone marrow transplant? Is the objective to replace all the marrow in the body? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2c527x/eli5_what_is_involved_in_a_bone_marrow_transplant/ | {
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"Bone Marrow is mainly there for producing both types of blood cells (white and red). If your bone marrow goes crazy and starts producing too many white blood cells, which fight disease, cancer happens.\n\nThe procedure is two steps: First to kill all the existing bone marrow through radiation. This leaves you with no immune system. The second part is to introduce the bone marrow from another person that's a close 'match' for you (very, very [nasty](_URL_0_) things happen if there's not a good match). This essentially 'resets' the immune system.\n\n(Interesting aside: This procedure was used to cure a man with HIV. He had Leukemia and they found a match that had a genetic immunity to HIV. They transplanted his marrow and it was able to kill the virus.)",
"If anyone in this thread is interested, you could sign up to be a donor with [_URL_1_](_URL_0_). Chances are, you will never be called to donate, but if so, you get to save a life. ",
"I'm sitting at my computer in a bone marrow unit right now. i'm a clinical psychology grad student, and i have been working in this unit for 2 years. /u/Korotai did a good job of explaining an allogeneic transplant (getting someone else's marrow/stem cells). You can also go through the same procedure while getting your own cells back. this is an autologous transplant. basically, they take the marrow that is not bad, remove the marrow that is bad, and return the good marrow. \n\n\n\nthis is what a typical transplant looks like:\n\n\n* many evaluations to see if you are a good candidate for transplant\n\n* lots of education and preparation for transplant \n\n* outpatient chemo to kill most of the bad cells\n\n* harvesting good cells (from donor or the patient)\n\n* removing all bad cells\n\n* introducing good cells\n\n* inpatient care for roughly 2-3 weeks waiting for your blood count to get up to a desired amount\n\n* outpatient isolation: auto = 100 days of isolation. allo = roughly 3 weeks of isolation\n\n* isolation requires a completely clean environment, no pets, no plants, minimal contact with anything out of the home, only frozen food, no kids, and very clean guests. also, you will need a 24/7 caregiver as the patient will feel like they have the flu most of the time. \n\n* feel like hell for about 5 weeks and slowly begin to improve\n\n* required to walk 60 min a day and eat as many calories as possible. \n\n* after isolation there are still many precautions to take. no swimming for a whole year, for example. \n\n ",
"2x anonymous bone marrow donor here. The \"harvest\" procedure sounds worse than it actually is. You get knocked out then feel stiff and sore like you slipped and hit your tailbone, for a few days. Small price to pay considering what the patient is going through. You can also get on the registry here _URL_0_ .",
"Not sure whats it's like to be a recipient but here is an account of a PBSC donation!\n\nI donated late last year and it was the easiest thing ever. Registered with Antony Nolan 3 years ago and was matched in the summer of 2013. The procedure for me was very easy, it was collected via PBSC (Peripheral Blood Stem Cells). This is essentially a blood donation where they pump it through a machine, remove the stem cells, then pump the blood back in. I was given hormone treatment to boost stem cell growth in the blood beforehand.\n\nI donated double what they needed for a man weighing 50% more than myself and was fine the day after, he is recovering well according to the latest update :)\n\n_URL_0_"
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1g9kb8 | how does the pharmaceutical industry work? in other words, what is the process from the lab to the pill creation to the pharmacy. | Just curious about how pills are created and made and then distributed to the public. I'm also curious how this affects the price of a medication. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1g9kb8/eli5_how_does_the_pharmaceutical_industry_work_in/ | {
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"Surprisingly appropriate job here, I'm a student process engineer at a bulk pharmaceutical production plant.\n\nWe produce [API (Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient)](_URL_0_) on a large scale on our manufacturing site. For example when you buy a box of Paracetamol (many brands out there, e.g. Panadol/Tylenol), the actual ammount of active ingredient (paracetamol/acetaminophen) is usually about 1,000-4,000mg per tablet.\n\nWe produce the API in bulk (e.g. 200kg+ batches), which we then ship to formulation plants all over the world. \n\nIn formulation the API will be blended with other bulking agents (some to give the tablet size/shape, other to control the rate at which the tablet dissolves in the stomach etc), and then compressed into the tablet shapes. The dosage of API per tablet is controlled by the ammount of bulk API which is mixed with the rest of the formulation.. \n\nFor example just one batch from the plant I work at can produce enough API for up to 25 million tablets, and we turn out about 4/5 batches of this product a week normally.\n\nI'm not so sure on the packaging and distribution side of things, since that's all handled by other parts of the business.. But the cost of producing the medication is a big factor in setting the cost of sale to the patient. Typically for big-pharma companies (ie not generic manufacturers) there's around an 80% mark up on production cost of the medication to the sales cost. \n\nI used to think this was a bit steep until I saw just how much money it costs in R & D and PR & D to get a single medicine to market. Out of hundreds (maybe thousands) of possible theraputic molecules, often only 1 makes it as far as production (for many reasons). Though a lot of the other molecules will have had thousands/hundreds of thousands/millions spent developing them and paying for the clinical trials etc...\n\nWithout the high markup, there wouldn't be any money to pile into R & D, and there would be no new medicines being developed!\n\nI hope that helps a bit?"
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1s61e0 | why can corporations commit fraud, money laundering or worse and just pay a fine, whereas a man who plugs his electric car in at a school on the weekend gets arrested. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1s61e0/eli5_why_can_corporations_commit_fraud_money/ | {
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"You can't send a corporation to jail. Unless the act is traceable to a single person, you cannot punish the entire company like that. Don't assume JP Morgan is enjoying a 13bn fine. That's gonna hurt for a long time. \n\nThe man was stealing electricity from a government building. The amount doesn't matter, the act does.",
"I just get caught up with people being able to commit horrendous fraud or steal billions - yet hide behind a corporate entity, escaping true justice only to pay a fine. Yet the little guy, plain ol' average Joe gets arrested for something that is considered quite petty. Did the guy steal electricity? Sure. Should he be punished? Absolutely. In my opinion with regards to the corporations who commit crimes - someone should be jailed. CEO, COO, board of directors - whomever is responsible for the oversight of their business. Someone has to be held accountable, even if they are ignorant of any wrong doing. \n\nThere is far too much incarceration of the smaller crimes, yet billions of dollars are lost or millions of people are harmed - no one goes to jail for that. I'd be willing to bet that if someone were held accountable in these corrupt corporations - there would be less incentive to commit the fraud or theft. Someone made the decisions to go through with these acts, so those are the people that should be punished. In my opinion, it starts at the top. CEO/COO/BoD - they steer the direction of the company and are thus, in my eyes, responsible for the wrong doings of said company.",
"Because cops don't really understand white collar crime. Petty theft is easy to arrest someone for -- a banker commiting fraud is much harder to prove.",
"Honestly, for the more extreme offenses the businesses deserve to be shutdown and their holdings distributed fairly, but any time someone calls for the company to go under there are always fucking idiots that come out to say that sooooo many innocent people would lose their jobs.\n\nWhy the FUCK does that matter? So..... no one can ever be properly punished because some wittle gwoup of people might be out of a job for a brief time?\n\nAlternatively, you want to know the real reason? Money and nothing else. Everyone is perfectly fine with shitting on our future so they can have an extra $1 today. Anyone that puts ANYTHING before the progress of our species is a worthless pile of shit that doesn't deserve to exist.",
"You could ask why a peasant stealing bread 400 years ago in England gets hanged, but the King of England goes unpunished for systematically oppressing the entire population.",
"You can send corporate officers and directors to prison for corporate malfeasance. A bunch of ADM execs went to prison over the lysine price fixing scandal. Jeff Skilling and Bernie Ebbers are other prominent examples.",
"Because you can't arrest a corporation.",
"I cant speak to the JP Morgan fines, but I am not sure that the J & J activities were \"heinous\". They were charged with fraud. But fraud is a rather technical term here. Most of the activity was attributable to billing by clinicians for indications that were not FDA approved (not necessarily inappropriate). Almost every drug you have likely ever heard of has \"off-label\" uses. These uses are supported by clinical evidence, and physicians are allowed to use it off label. But drug companies arnt allowed to tell the physicians that these uses exist. (FDA argument: Information should be vetted. Pharma argument: We have the most information on the topic, and yet we are the ones expected to keep quiet about this information that can actually benefit patients.)\n\nSo the argument wasn't that what you did was wrong. But medicare paid for something that they shouldnt have had to pay for.\n\nThere are recent court cases including a recent argument in the 2nd circuit post the coronia case that may cast these types of multi billion dollar fines into question (since it becomes a first amendment issue.)\n\ntl;dr It wasnt heinous. It was technical fraud.",
"Because you read sensationalist articles. Also, heads and people with certain fiduciary duties can most definitely go to jail. Fraudsters frequently go to jail, along with anyone that violates Securities Exchange laws.\n\nI'm seriously not trying to sound condescending, but headlines about corporations are always, always sensationalist.",
"A corporation is a Legal Person (recognized as having its own legal rights, duties and responsibilities) in the eyes of the law. Shareholder's have limited liabilities and are protected by something commonly referred as the \"corporate veil\". Shareholder's can only be personally liable and risk going to jail in the following circumstances....\n\n\n**Lifting of the Corporate Veil** – Imposes liability on those who control it if 3 conditions are met:\n\n1. The individual must control the corporation\n\n2. That control must have been exercised to commit a fraud, a wrong or a breach of duty\n\n3. The misconduct must be the cause injury (harmed someone in some sort of way)\n",
"People caught committing fraud ARE sent to jail. Don't believe otherwise. \n\nProving fraud is extremely difficult!\n\nCorporations are fined if their internal control structures were weak to allow someone to commit fraud. The organisation hasn't committed the fraud - someone within the business has. Proving who that someone is is hard to do. \nProving that the corporation has blame is easier. ",
"Men are not hung for stealing horses, but that horses may not be stolen. - Lord Halifax\n",
"Why is this question labeled as explained? I'm not seeing it.",
"People do go to jail for fraud and money laundering. All the time actually.\n\nThe man who plugged in his Leaf for $1 may have been arrested but he won't suffer in any appreciable way. He's not going to jail, in fact his charges will likely be dismissed. Courts have no interest in prosecuting someone for $1. That's a small claims court issue at best.",
"As George Carlin said, [\"There's a big club, and you ain't in it!\"](_URL_0_)",
"The etymology of the word \"privilege\" breaks down into words meaning \"private law.\" The rich have a privilege; a law separate from the not-rich. The rich, in this case the rich corporations, write the laws specifically not to apply to them, to make their crimes punishable by easily paid fines. ",
"I always felt that coporations should lose rights to all of their assets for a period of time. IE if you're releasing a product that knowingly kills or harms, then you lose all rights to all of your assets for an amount of time. Just like if someone going to jail.",
" While a Congressman, Secretary of State John Kerry, (already a billionaire after marrying Teresa Heinz, heiress to the Heinz fortune), used his knowledge of an upcoming bill to make a cool $24 million in the stock market. \"Insider Trading\" is perfectly legal for anyone in Congress. Any other American citizen would get arrested and most likely go to prison.\n That should answer why the man who charged his Nissan Leaf got arrested. Only Congressmen and Corporations are above the law.\n",
"corporatocracy \n\nreal governments do lock up corrupt bankers and CEOs, like in Iceland and Ecuador....",
"Here is some more info about the electricity stealing incident for those interested:\n_URL_0_",
"Can't throw a Corporation in jail. ",
"An isolated incident where a man gets arrested for something nominal isn't really a fair starting point... but corporations aren't people. \n\n\nYou can't throw a company in jail, and if a person is *caught* committing fraud then they will be arrested. Most of the people on this website don;'t realize how intricate and complicated fraud is at big name company's, and you often can't pinpoint every person, if any, that are responsible. Also theres a difference between doing something irresponsible and unethical and something illegal. If you are for some reason saying that companies should be disbanded if fraud occurs, think about if you worked at a big company and one person committed fraud, causing your company to be shut down, and now thousands are out of a job. Is that right?\n\n\n\nWhat do you think should happen to corporations that commit fraud?",
"This is a question about proportionality. I know it is unpleasant to acknowledge, but justice can very often depend on the resources that are brought to bear. Hence, wealthy individuals (and corporations) can mount a more meaningful and substantive (often successful) defense in a court of law. Most individuals, such as the electricity 'borrowing' hippy, do not have the resources to place pressure on a law enforcement officer or prosecutor to get them to drop the offense. If he had been wealthy, well, he wouldn't be draining Uncle Sam's precious electrons.\n\nA corporation, on the other hand, can have an army of lawyers, lobbyists, and chummy politicians to exert pressure. Also, I won't forget to mention the war chest filled money. As others have pointed out apportioning legal culpability with regards to corporations is a difficult proposition. There is the practical reason of responsibility often being diffuse with corporations, but the more disturbing and currently prescient issue with many large companies being involved in writing the laws that govern their behavior. \n\nIn other words, these corporations make what would otherwise be illegal activity for you and me as individuals completely legal for themselves. The recent housing bubble is a prime (no pun intended) example. In that case, despite everyone knowing that activity, which would normally be interpreted or deemed criminal, was taking place no one is prosecuted. No one goes to jail because the written laws don't cover the activity that took place, sometimes as a result of the deregulation that everyone talks about. The few cases the government took up, mostly ended in acquittals because the juries did not find the evidence compelling and/or the companies had not actually broken any law.\n\nSo, what's the solution. Well, democracy...but an active and healthy one. Right now we seem to have a rather unhealthy one. If you are concerned about this more than anything else, become a single issue voter and let your elected representative know. Believe it or not, legislators listen when their electorate is organized on an issue. I personally make campaign finance reform my number one, but to each their own.",
"Because you can't arrest a corporation. Isn't it obvious?\n",
"He was on private property and stealing resources, it doesn't matter how much was stolen, are you saying you wouldn't care if someone entered your house and stole 50 cents. Employers of companies do also go to jail for illegal activities, and fines for the companies are just another way of regulating unscrupulous activities.",
"ITT: People who don't know what the fuck they're talking about because many people have gone away for corporate fraud. No, the \"cronies, white people and bankers\" are not running the system. Many of them went to jail.",
"Because a corporation can't go to jail. They get huge fines and lengthy legal processes to go through. They lose a lot of money. People in those corporations *can* and *do* go to jail if they're proven to have done something that warrants it.\n\nThis man stole that electricity. It doesn't matter that it was barely any electricity. He still committed a crime. There are written laws and he broke them.\n\nIt's that simple. \n\n",
"This is probably the most circlejerky \"fuck the corporations wahhh\" post I've ever seen on Reddit.",
"Erm, they can get fined and severely punished: _URL_0_\n\nThis is a pretty misleading question/title.",
"how do you put a corporation in prison?",
"To be fair, this is kind of a troll question. I find OP's true inquisitiveness about this subject to be dubious at best. The downfall of ELI5 could very well come about by people phrasing political statements or TIL-type-content as a question, soliciting upvotes by exploiting emotions of people who are passionate about the sentiment but not the question.",
"when did this sub become /r/loadedquestions ",
"Damn, this thread is brave",
"In the sidebar:\n\n > Don't post just to express an opinion or argue a point of view.",
" > It seems to me like it should be the other way around.\n\nI think a $13bn fine is a bit steep for plugging in your electric car.",
"In the words of the great Ozzie Myers, \"money talks and bullshit walks\".",
"The game is rigged, simple as that",
"Because the corporations do whatever the fuck they want. They own congress",
"Its strange that this thread has gone on this long without an answer the top, so I'm going to give it a stab.\n\nThe Corporations get fined for crimes that would get other individuals arrested for two reasons. The first is that while both parties enjoy the same rights under the law, the corporation has the resources to hire more knowledgable lawyers. The legal system is extremely complicated, and there are countless ways to prolong a court case; skilled corporate lawyers exploit these loopholes to make prosecutions as expensive as possible, which incentives the prosecutors to reach a settlement instead. \n\nThe second reason is that corporations often make decisions collectively, so figuring how who to arrest for a crime can sometimes be very difficult. Local, state, and federal prosecutors can and do arrest members of corporations for crimes(Bernie Madoff was part of a corporation) but often it is not clear-cut as to who actually committed a \"crime\". A man who siphons electricity from a school can be caught on camera. Money laundering, on the other hand, is an operation that can involve multiple individuals, each having just small enough of a role to plausibly claim that they did not know they were involved in a crime. Proving otherwise takes a lot of time, and since time is money and prosecutors have limited amounts of both, they are forced to pick their battles. \n\nThe man who siphoned gas, however, was caught on camera. That case is cheap and easy. In such cases, justice is swift. \n\n\n\n\n\n \n\n\n",
"I'm a student of Public Policy & Policy Analysis with a focus on Criminal Justice. Let me see if I can answer this one...\n\nIn the case of bank or corporate fraud as the US experienced in the most recent economic crash, [this article](_URL_0_) does a good job explaining a lot of the issues. Pay special attention to the ideas at the end of the first page - for many corporations, calculable fines are far outweighed by the actual profit in committing fraud in the first place, and so fines are seen as simply part of the 'price of doing business'.\n\nWhen it comes to banking fraud, the so-called 'revolving door' between the US Treasury Department and Wall Street is a real problem, as outline in [this article from the New Yorker](_URL_1_). As long as the regulatory body charged with overseeing Wall Street is made up of folks who are members of the same country clubs as the Wall Street folks themselves, don't expect much justice in the way of prosecutions of Wall Street crooks.",
"There are a ton or reasons, so many you simply can't compare the two.\n\nWhen you dial 911 to report a crime, you don't get the Federal Trade Commission, you get cops who go and arrest a guy who stole electricity.\n\nWhen JP Morgan commits fraud, no one calls 911, someone reports it to the government then they have to actually prove the fraud was committed beyond a reasonable doubt before someone gets arrested or fined.\n\nIt's like the difference between someone punching you in the face and someone invading your country. ",
"The system is broken, that is why.",
"Because the fix is in",
"I want to know where the $13bn dollar fine goes when the company pays it. ",
"A man goes in and robs a liquor store. The crime is apparent to everyone. The robber knows he is stealing, the cashier knows money is stolen. Any witness can tell a robbery is taking place.\n\nA multibillion dollar corporation decides to acquire money from a liquor store. The board and CEO decide to explore strategies for profiting from the liquor store. Analysts return reports that money is centralized in liquor store cash registers. The company then creates a subsidiary to research and execute an effective way to acquire said cash register money. Subsidiary researches cash registers, and concludes that the best way to extract money from a cash register is to open it and take it providing the liquor store owner approves the cash removal. Subsidiary then hires several outside contractors for various tasks. They hire a locksmith to open the cash register. They hire a sales team to convince the liquor store owner that removing cash from the register is a sound investment. They hire an English Major with massive student loan debt to remove the cash. The English major removes the cash and hands it to the Contractors, who pays the locksmith and the sales team and gives the rest to the Subsidiary, who then pays the researchers and gives the rest to the company who then pays the analysts, the board, the CEO and then re-invests the leftover profits into acquiring money from a pawn shop...\n\nAfter a week, the liquor store owner is wondering why his cash register is still empty. He's been hoodwinked, and he wants some justice so he calls the cops. The cops bust in on the company, but who do they handcuff? the CEO who was just attempting to earn profits? The Subsidiary that was simply doing research? the contractor who was not tasked with stealing but simply tasked with removing cash from a register? The locksmith, the sales team or the English major who were simply paid by a company to perform a perfectly legal task for that company? \n\nThe answer is this: The cops need to arrest someone for CORPORATE FRAUD, they need to arrest the person or people who completely understood that acquiring money from a liquor store would result in a loss for the liquor store owner, and yet KNOWINGLY LIED to the liquor store owner. The sales team near the bottom didn't know it was a lie, and the CEO at the top didn't lie about knowing. \n\nOf course, in reality, often many of the people along that ladder know what's going on, and certainly the people at the top know, but it's incredibly hard to prove. But not impossible. One good example is Enron. Jeff Skilling and Ken Lay knowingly lied to their shareholders (among other things), yet they pled ignorance. The main reason they were taken down is because of a guy named Andrew Fastow, the CFO of Enron, who basically broke every law in the book and then narked on his bosses for a lesser sentence.\n\nWhere the real bummer happens, is that in some recent cases like the HSBC scandal, there is fairly clear evidence that the people at the top committed corporate crimes, but the authorities have decided against criminal prosecution of those individuals for fear that it would cause further economic collapse. Ironically, many of those individuals were let go from the company anyway, because... you know... it's bad PR to keep an employee that irrefutably helped fund drug cartels. THE HSBC bank scandal was just cartoonishly evil, but coincidentally got buried in the news cycle because of the more easily understandable crime of murdering school children which happened the same week.\n\nTL:DR - A street crime is easily understandable and identifiable. With major corporate crime it is often difficult to prove exactly where the crime occurred and who committed it.",
"if you were worth $15 billion, you'd get away with a lot more stuff too"
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b949bw | how is it possible that car brakes don't lose their fricition after braking for a few times? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/b949bw/eli5_how_is_it_possible_that_car_brakes_dont_lose/ | {
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1x66ab | the difference between miles and nautical miles and why we need two different measurements? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1x66ab/eli5_the_difference_between_miles_and_nautical/ | {
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"The mile traces its origins to the Roman Empire and was originally 1000 paces (2000 steps), hence its similarity to the Latin \"Mille\" for thousand. When people went to the sea the need for a distance measurement of that scale still existed, but ships don't do much pacing so a different standard had to be used. While it's hard for a ship to measure how far it's gone it is much easier to figure out how far north/south it presently is by looking at the sun or stars. Thus, a definition for a roughly mile-length unit came to be--it is 1/60 of a degree along a meridian (north/south line).\n\nMore modern definitions have evolved from these original definitions, so a modern-day mile is 5,280 feet , while a modern-day nautical mile is 1.150779 miles exactly. ",
"Interesting side note, a scandinavian mile (sw mil) is 10 km. I think its Scandinavian, at least we measure long distances in \"mil\" in Sweden.",
"A nautical mile is a unit of length that is one minute of arc measured along any meridian. What you call a mile is a *statute mile* or U.S. *survey mile* and its length of 5280 feet was determined by an English Act of Parliament in 1593. A nautical mile is 1.15 survey miles or 6,076 feet.",
"With 2,000 yds. per NM and 1,760 yds. per SM (statute mile), I was happy for the difference when I served as an Ops Specialist in the U.S. Navy, working in CIC (Combat Information Center). It sure made the math a whole lot easier when working out solutions for intercepting (or avoiding collisions with) targets on the radar.",
"A nautical mile is a unit of angle, not distance. It is one minute of latitude (one sixtieth of a degree) where it cuts the earth's surface. There are 90 degrees of latitude between pole and equator, this is 90 x 60 minutes (or nautical miles) or 5400 n. miles. It is used because navigators used sextants to measure the angles of sun moon and stars above the horizon in order to obtain their position, and therefore a unit of angle is the result."
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233l0h | how does a spaceship know how fast it's going? | We know how fast Voyager 1 is going, is that because it has a device on it to measure its speed? Or is it because we visually measured its speed compared to background objects, and have implied it?
A tire is the object that rotates and measures a vehicle's speed. Air speed passing by a sensor determines a plane's speed. We don't know what dark matter is (and presuming we don't have sensors to measure it), so how do we know how fast a vehicle in space is going? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/233l0h/eli5_how_does_a_spaceship_know_how_fast_its_going/ | {
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"Speed in space is measured relative to another object. With no point of reference, you're effectively standing still. In the case of Voyager, we measure its speed relative to the Earth. We can tell how far we are from Earth at Time A and again at Time B and then do the math. It's really no different from measuring your speed in a car or a plane except that you're using a different medium.",
"We know how fast the spaceship is going because we knew have fast it was going, exactly where it was heading, and how long it's been travelling, as well as everything near it that matters (the sun, basically). If you know all those factors you can figure out what speed it will be moving in the future.\n\nIn addition we can tell how fast it's going based on the signal that it's sending to earth. This is also how we can tell how fast other galaxies are moving away from us.\n\nBut in all these cases the speed is actually **speed relative to something**. Voyager 1 is listed as travelling X mph away from the sun, but it's exactly as accurate to say the sun is moving at X mph away from Voyager 1.",
"Spacecraft know how fast they're going using a system of satellites called the deep space network. This network is used for communication with Earth as well as location tracking using timed radio pings. Using multiple locating pings over time and knowledge of nearby celestial objects, you can build a trajectory and figure out the spacecraft's current speed and direction, as well as where it should be in the future. I'm sure measuring the red shift is part of it, but I'm not sure that you can rely on that.",
"The other answers are correct but seem a bit vague. So here's the gist of it...\n\nNASA has *two* ways of calculating the speed of spacecrafts. First: **engineers spend months ahead of time calculating and calibrating the fight path their spacecrafts.** You see, when you're launching millions of dollars worth of equipment into space, you want to keep everything at an optional speed so things don't go wrong.\n\nBut how do you accurately measure the speed of this spacecraft? How do you know that something didn't go wrong and you're going faster/slower than planned? It's easy. (Well, sort of. It is rocket science after all...)\n\nSo think about how the people at NASA communicate with their spacecrafts. They transmit waves that send and retrieve commands for the spacecrafts. (Such as radio waves). These waves, however, have to follow the laws of physics. They can only travel the speed of light. Even at this speed it still takes time to reach the distant crafts. **By measuring the difference in time between each signal sent and received, the engineers can calculate accurate speed.**\n\nEdit: so you don't get confused, light and radio waves travel at the same speed.",
"The DSN (Deep Space Network) sends a radio burst to the probe. It then measures how long it takes to get a response (providing distance) as well as the doppler shift in the response (providing speed along that axis). It can also determine the place in the sky that the signal came from.\n\nBy tracking the probe over time, they can get a very accurate picture of the probe's location, direction, and speed.\n\nI don't think the Voyager probes have this, but another way of determining location is to take sightings off of other planetary bodies. Speed would then be determined by watching the location change over time.",
"All I had on this was what I'd heard as a kid when we were landing (or faking) the moon expeditions. I had no idea, just googled this. NASA has [info](_URL_0_). The business about using wavefronts and quasars to find angular position is kinda cool. I'd always thought there was a lot that could be done with long baseline interferomentry and very accurate clocks. Never guessed that people used quasars as the clocks. It makes a lot of sense. Why build a network for hyper-accurate time when its floating out there already?\n\nIt seems that space craft position is based on four things:\n\n1) Speed away/toward us is calculated from doppler shift of some type of laser radio signal from the ship.\n\n2) Distance is determined by a return echo that's been calibrated with the spacecraft's internal delays. This is similar to aircraft transponders\n\n3) Angular position is worked out through this long baseline interferometry business that uses quasar wavefronts as candles.\n\n4) Spacecraft can automatically pick out a few stars. Using sextant type algorithms, internal inertial telemetry similar to the navigation systems on aircraft, and info sent from earth they fine tune their position. Edit: I'm guess this last is mostly for correcting orientation of the craft so lookups for relative positions of planets and rocket vectors work better."
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411nln | why is it accepted that the personality and intellect of a dog can be inherited by its breed, but a human's personality and intellect is not inherited by its parents race or ethnicity? (regardless of nurture) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/411nln/eli5_why_is_it_accepted_that_the_personality_and/ | {
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"IIRC, the amount of genetic variation between different races of people is much lower than it is for different breeds of dogs. Also, it might be. I haven't heard of anything proving that different races are more subject to certain temperaments, but I also haven't heard anything to the contrary. I would love to be shown something on this. ",
"Well, we have selectively bred certain traits into each breed of dog. There are dogs that are highly agressive, or protective, dogs that can herd sheep, or hunt or smell for certain things, etcetera.\n\nIf we selectively bred certain people over a number of generations, for higher levels of intelligence, or certain skills, then we might start to see such predictability between the artificially selected \"races\" as it were. But, we don't do this, and we typically condemn anyone who would suggest it. There has been a lot of genetic cross-pollination over the last several hundred years i.e. we're just a bunch of mutts with no genetic predictability whatsoever.\n\nAdditionally, the nature versus nurture debate is rather silly when you think about epi-genetics. You can be suceptible to certain conditions, or develop specific traits if you have the right situation. ",
"Two major reasons.\n\nOne is that human intelligence is a lot harder to *objectively* measure than dog intelligence. It's a lot easier to measure how many times it takes a dog to *just learn how to sit down oh my god* than to measure what percentage of a scientific lecture someone remembers or how long it takes them to do complex algebra in their heads. All humans (barring major disability) are equally proficient at single-step tasks, like sitting down. The more steps you add, the more difficult it becomes to objectively measure how good someone is at a task. Not to mention the average human knows more basic tasks than a dog by a factor of a couple thousand.\n\nThe second could be called morality, but is more like conceitedness. Even if we could measure human intelligence with absolute certainty, and we discovered a worldwide disparity in intelligence between two races, it would not be accepted by the scientific community. Humans, religious or not, believe they are special, and as such are immune to things like heritage-linked intelligence. This is not going to go away any time soon, so even if you *wanted* to prove a link between race and intelligence, at best you'd achieve nothing and at worst you'd be considered Hitler 2.0 and made a social pariah forever. Thus, nobody bothers outside of superficial data correlations which take a couple hours to throw together.",
"In order to understand how intelligence is transferred in species, you have to understand lines of descent (the jargon word for this is \"haplogroup\"). The way that a breed of dogs is created is basically by inbreeding to create an artificially \"strong\" line of descent. So a chihuahua was not made by chance, it is was made by breeding very specific dogs until the desired result was achieved. Ok, so let's say you bred a dumb chihuahua with an intelligent german shepherd? You'd get a variety of dog sizes and colors right? Could you tell which ones had inherited the intelligence by color? Probably not. You might be able to tell by cranium size or other physical barriers, but, by the kinds of incidental characteristics that we call \"race\" in humans, you would not.\n\nThe same is true for people. Sure, intelligence is inherited, but humans aren't being bred, so if even one person in the line has any brains it would totally screw up any racial metric for intelligence you might have. Let's say we went to an extreme case and say, hypothetically, you found an isolated tribe in the amazon with measurably low intelligence and purple skin (due to several millennia of inbreeding). Lets say you exposed them to their next door neighbors in Sao Paulo, Brazil (modern humans). Sure, there might still be some people running around with purple skin after a few generations and some of them might have the bad, intelligence reducing, gene leftover from inbreeding, but you probably wouldn't be able to tell which ones had gotten the gene and which ones were exactly the same as your average South American just by looking at them.",
"I believe that personality is inherited and environmental as well. After all, people with various mental illnesses and intellectual limitations have common personality types. I don't see why it would not be accepted. That, and the fact that hormonal changes in women during pregnancy or during various times in their cycle, as well as men during puberty or on hormonal therapy effect personality. \n",
"On the contrary, if a parent has attended one college, their offspring has better chances of getting into said college.",
"Simply put, dog breeds are way more genetically distinctive than human 'races' are. In fact, humans as a whole are quite genetically similar to each other when compared with other species.",
"We do see this in humans, its just frowned upon whenever someone talks about it. Everyone just wants to hear \"All people are equal,\" but we clearly aren't. If we start hiring people by race because we know they're already suited for the job, then people will call out racism, which is what happened, kinda. \n\nWe see this in IQ and other traits.\nWe know Kenyans are pretty damn good at running. \nAsians are incredibly good at math & science (above average). Ashkenazi Jews are incredibly brilliant as a group, especially in the area of language. ",
"The following information about intelligence, genetics, race, etc was put together by 52 of some of the most well respected professors in the fields of intelligence, statistics, sociology, etc\n\n\"Intelligence is a very general mental capability ... it reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our surroundings ...\n\n\"\"Intelligence, so defined, can be measured, and intelligence tests measure it well. They are among the most accurate (in technical terms, reliable and valid) of all psychological tests and assessments.\n\n\"\"While there are different types of intelligence tests, they all measure the same intelligence.\n\n\"\"The spread of people along the IQ continuum ... can be represented well by the ... ‘normal curve'.\n\n\"\"Intelligence tests are not culturally biased\n\n\"\"The brain processes underlying intelligence are still little understood\n\n\"\"Members of all racial-ethnic groups can be found at every IQ level \n\n\"\"The bell curve for whites is centered roughly around IQ 100; the bell curve for American blacks roughly around 85; and those for different subgroups of Hispanics roughly midway between those for whites and blacks. The evidence is less definitive for exactly where above IQ 100 the bell curves for Jews and Asians are centered\n\n\"\"IQ is strongly related, probably more so than any other single measurable human trait, to many important educational, occupational, economic, and social outcomes ... Whatever IQ tests measure, it is of great practical and social importance\n\n\"\"A high IQ is an advantage because virtually all activities require some reasoning and decision-making\n\n\"\"The practical advantages of having a higher IQ increase as life’s settings become more complex\n\n\"\"Differences in intelligence certainly are not the only factor affecting performance in education, training, and complex jobs ... but intelligence is often the most important\n\n\"\"Certain personality traits, special talents, [etc] are important ... in many jobs, but they have narrower (or unknown) applicability or ‘transferability’ across tasks and settings compared with general intelligence\n\n\"\"Heritability estimates range from 0.4 to 0.8 ... indicating genetics plays a bigger role than environment in creating IQ differences\n\n\"\"Members of the same family also tend to differ substantially in intelligence\n\n\"\"That IQ may be highly heritable does not mean that it is not affected by the environment ... IQs do gradually stabilize during childhood, however, and generally change little thereafter\n\n\"\"Although the environment is important in creating IQ differences, we do not know yet how to manipulate it\n\n\"\"Genetically caused differences are not necessarily irremediable\n\n\"\"There is no persuasive evidence that the IQ bell curves for different racial-ethnic groups are converging\n\n\"\"Racial-ethnic differences in IQ bell curves are essentially the same when youngsters leave high school as when they enter first grade ... black 17-year-olds perform, on the average, more like white 13-year-olds\n\n\"\"The reasons that blacks differ among themselves in intelligence appear to be the same as those for why whites ... differ among themselves\n\n\"\"There is no definitive answer as to why bell curves differ across racial-ethnic groups. The reasons for these IQ differences between groups may be markedly different from the reasons for why individuals differ among themselves within any particular group\n\n\"\"Racial-ethnic differences are somewhat smaller but still substantial for individuals from the same socio-economic backgrounds\n\n\"\"Almost all Americans who identify themselves as black have white ancestors – the white admixture is about 20% ... research on intelligence relies on self-classification into distinct racial categories\n\n\"\"The research findings neither dictate nor preclude any particular social policy, because they can never determine our goals. They can, however, help us estimate the likely success and side-effects of pursuing those goals via different means.\"",
"Twin studies have found that IQ is about as heritable as height, but people REALLY don't like to hear that.\n\n_URL_0_\n\nSame person (tested twice) .95\n\nIdentical twins—Reared together .86\n\nIdentical twins—Reared apart .76\n\nFraternal twins—Reared together .55\n\nFraternal twins—Reared apart .35\n\nBiological siblings—Reared together .47\n\nBiological siblings—Reared apart .24\n\nUnrelated children—Reared together—Children .28\n\nUnrelated children—Reared together—Adults .04\nCousins .15\n\nParent-child—Living together .42\n\nParent-child—Living apart .22\n\nAdoptive parent–child—Living together .19\n\n",
"It's not accepted really. It's also very hard to distinguish the effects on behaviour between nature and nurture. Basically the answer is it's a combination of both that determine the trait with varying levels of influence attributed to nature or nurture depending on each specific trait for animals and humans. Humans do have certain genetic predispositions to certain mental traits for instance the likely hood of developing schizophrenia is significantly higher amongst people who have a family history. Check out this lecture series it is amazing Stanford professor Robert Sapolsky Human Behavioral Biology _URL_0_ (get's pretty hard very quickly after 2/3 lectures)",
"So many terrible answers in this thread. \n\nThe long and the short of it is that humans aren't dogs. Humans have one of the longest juvenile periods of any animal. Therefore their development is much less dependent on inherited traits and more dependent on the environment they are raised in. \n\nAlso the generational inbreeding of dogs would be terrible for humans(it also isn't that great for dogs) from a genetic standpoint. Dogs are typically bred for physical attributes and their personalities can be highly variable(though inbreeding can create terrible personality types in animals). \n\nThe more we learn about human development, the more we understand that things like maternal nutrition or exposure to lead are important factors to a person's personality and intellectual ability. "
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mno6z | seriously li5: why does paypal take 3-5 business days to withdraw money to my bank account, but can take money away instantly? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/mno6z/seriously_li5_why_does_paypal_take_35_business/ | {
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"Well, imagine if paypal do that with every transaction like yours. That's a lot of money that they're holding for 3-5 days, all the time. And that money earns interest. So basically they're making money off your money.\n\nEdit: wdarea51's answer is probably the less cynical, more accurate response.",
"PayPal is not a regular account. It is an escrow account. What this means, is that they are a trusted third party who holds money on behalf of two other parties who are making a deal. One person says, \" I have this thing here. It works well and is in good repair.\" The other person says, \" I would gladly pay this many monies, if what you say is true,\" The payer gives then gives the escrow company the money and is allowed to inspect the thing they bought to see if the seller was telling the truth. If they are, they tell the escrow holder to release the money; if the seller was being dishonest, they can keep the money and give the seller back their product. \nAny time PayPal releases the money early, they are essentially giving you a loan. Their whole purpose was to hold money for 3-5 days. They started as a way to make it easier to trust an individual who came online and said, \" I have this thing to sell; how much will you pay me?\"",
"This answer is not as intuitive as you might think. Econ major here with focus on money and banking:\n\nWhen you sign up for paypal and subsequently create a verified bank account with them, you essentially tell paypal they have the right to withdraw funds and deposit funds into that account. Although paypal has no direct way of knowing exactly how much money is in that account that is linked and also has no way of being able to instantly wire it in and out. It uses a method that takes a few days and is more of a transfer than a direct wire transfer you would get if you went to a bank.\n\nThis is where the delay comes in. When you pay for something with paypal and you tell it to take the money out of your bank in an \"instant transfer\" it actually does not take the money right away (if you check your bank account you can confirm this) but it takes a few days. It TRUSTS that you have the money in the account and essentially covers your transaction for you until the transfer actually goes through. (Note: if you pay with a check card that is attached to your bank account it will happen instantly, I am only talking about the direct checking account transfer here)\n\nOnto why it takes time to do this in reverse. Essentially, because they have no \"direct\" connection to your bank account and when you pull money from your bank account, it covers it temporarily; this cant be done in reverse. Paypal cant \"force\" the money into your bank account, and since you are \"starting\" this transaction from paypal's end, your receiving bank has no way of knowing this transaction was even initiated until the transaction \"hits the account, and clears\"... so as far as paypal is concerned, its done its job, its up to your receiving bank to recognize the funds and clear them. If you could somehow start this transaction from the receiving bank, and get them to \"trust\" that the money is in your paypal account, it could happen instantly and the delay would be on your paypal accounts side, and not on your bank accounts side... follow?\n\nedit: I should note that I am not necessarily explaining the back-end of \"why\" it takes so long to complete this process. I agree that a \"push\" (sending money to an account, initiated from the \"pushing\" account) \"should\" only take 24 hours or less. But a \"pull\", because of the limitations stated above, takes time to clear, primarily because the account the money is being pulled from has to recognize the other bank asking for the money and then has to clear it, and the receiving bank has to recognize the transfer is completed. I agree this process \"should\" be quicker, and banks should try to streamline this process.",
"I don't know, but I can answer why they randomly lock accounts, put bullshit limits for the smallest of reasons and have scarce tech support: because it's a fucking shitty service.",
"Because they don't trust you.\n",
"ELI5 what's so good about paypal if you can use chequeing and credit",
"Well, imagine if paypal do that with every transaction like yours. That's a lot of money that they're holding for 3-5 days, all the time. And that money earns interest. So basically they're making money off your money.\n\nEdit: wdarea51's answer is probably the less cynical, more accurate response.",
"PayPal is not a regular account. It is an escrow account. What this means, is that they are a trusted third party who holds money on behalf of two other parties who are making a deal. One person says, \" I have this thing here. It works well and is in good repair.\" The other person says, \" I would gladly pay this many monies, if what you say is true,\" The payer gives then gives the escrow company the money and is allowed to inspect the thing they bought to see if the seller was telling the truth. If they are, they tell the escrow holder to release the money; if the seller was being dishonest, they can keep the money and give the seller back their product. \nAny time PayPal releases the money early, they are essentially giving you a loan. Their whole purpose was to hold money for 3-5 days. They started as a way to make it easier to trust an individual who came online and said, \" I have this thing to sell; how much will you pay me?\"",
"This answer is not as intuitive as you might think. Econ major here with focus on money and banking:\n\nWhen you sign up for paypal and subsequently create a verified bank account with them, you essentially tell paypal they have the right to withdraw funds and deposit funds into that account. Although paypal has no direct way of knowing exactly how much money is in that account that is linked and also has no way of being able to instantly wire it in and out. It uses a method that takes a few days and is more of a transfer than a direct wire transfer you would get if you went to a bank.\n\nThis is where the delay comes in. When you pay for something with paypal and you tell it to take the money out of your bank in an \"instant transfer\" it actually does not take the money right away (if you check your bank account you can confirm this) but it takes a few days. It TRUSTS that you have the money in the account and essentially covers your transaction for you until the transfer actually goes through. (Note: if you pay with a check card that is attached to your bank account it will happen instantly, I am only talking about the direct checking account transfer here)\n\nOnto why it takes time to do this in reverse. Essentially, because they have no \"direct\" connection to your bank account and when you pull money from your bank account, it covers it temporarily; this cant be done in reverse. Paypal cant \"force\" the money into your bank account, and since you are \"starting\" this transaction from paypal's end, your receiving bank has no way of knowing this transaction was even initiated until the transaction \"hits the account, and clears\"... so as far as paypal is concerned, its done its job, its up to your receiving bank to recognize the funds and clear them. If you could somehow start this transaction from the receiving bank, and get them to \"trust\" that the money is in your paypal account, it could happen instantly and the delay would be on your paypal accounts side, and not on your bank accounts side... follow?\n\nedit: I should note that I am not necessarily explaining the back-end of \"why\" it takes so long to complete this process. I agree that a \"push\" (sending money to an account, initiated from the \"pushing\" account) \"should\" only take 24 hours or less. But a \"pull\", because of the limitations stated above, takes time to clear, primarily because the account the money is being pulled from has to recognize the other bank asking for the money and then has to clear it, and the receiving bank has to recognize the transfer is completed. I agree this process \"should\" be quicker, and banks should try to streamline this process.",
"I don't know, but I can answer why they randomly lock accounts, put bullshit limits for the smallest of reasons and have scarce tech support: because it's a fucking shitty service.",
"Because they don't trust you.\n",
"ELI5 what's so good about paypal if you can use chequeing and credit"
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4xpqu6 | what happens when somebody puts you on the spot and your mind "blanks" for a second | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4xpqu6/eli5what_happens_when_somebody_puts_you_on_the/ | {
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"You're stuck between a physical and mental reaction. \n\nIt's spastic that a sub designed to explain things to five year olds makes you write loads of words before it will let you post but that's beurocracy for you. So yeah, ignore all of this, the answer is in the first 8 words up there.",
"When someone \"puts you on the spot\" you are putting a lot of pressure on your brain to recall what the person wants you to remember in a very short amount of time. Memory works best when people can take time to recall the information in parts (e.g. time, colours, activities, etc.) and combine it together in a more understable story rather than rushing recall due to social pressure which leads to fragmented or distorted memories (aka retrieval error). \"Blanking\" just means that you are unable to retrieve the information requested due to being unable to recall the most important parts of the story, or even the name of a person (search tip of tongue effect for more info). Another reason for the \"blank\" could also to be due to problems with encoding (storing) the memory. Either the memory wasn't interesting or important enough for it to be stored properly to be recalled later. \n\nTL;DR: Your brain can't handle working under pressure which leads to brain farts; or you didn't find the event as interesting as your friend did so don't remember it."
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1ir74r | what's the difference between human blood and animal blood? | What makes animal blood differentiate from human blood? Is it all the same stuff? If so, why can't we use it for donations? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ir74r/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_human_blood_and/ | {
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"Animals have a different DNA compared to humans, and thus have a different immune system and different tolerance for bacteria and other microorganisms. As such, animal blood would have many foreign objects our body would instantly try to reject, and the blood may be fatal to the new host. \n\nAlso, we as humans sign our blood away, there is some choice in the matter. Animals don't really have any choice, or a way to communicate a choice. ",
"The difference in blood between a human and an animal can be small, such as between us and a gorilla or immensely different, say between us and a lobster. The gorilla's blood using the same oxygen carrying molecule and similar antigens (chemical receptors that determine your ABO blood type) whereas a lobster uses a copper molecule instead of an iron molecule to carry oxygen. \n\nBlood typing also has what's called an Rh factor that can be positive or negative (present or not). Rh stands for rhesus because it was discovered that we share an antigen with that monkey.\n\nIn short it could be possible to use very closely related animal blood transfusions, but with minor mutations to the system it's not going to be easy to get a properly cross-matched inter-species blood transfusion.",
"One of the first blood transfusions was done with the blood of a lamb because it was seen as the \"purest\". \n\nSurprisingly worked. ",
"Humans are animals. "
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2gb8ri | why is treating depression/anxiety with alcohol or marijuana considered unhealthier than treating it with antidepressants? | I just don't understand why self medicating with alcohol, marijuana, or other drugs is demonized when prescription medications like SSRI antidepressants are made out to be the healthier choice by the medical community. It seems like antidepressants and other prescriptions have a lot more side effects and dangers to them. What's going on here? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2gb8ri/eli5_why_is_treating_depressionanxiety_with/ | {
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"Several reasons: \n\nSelf medicating is not a good idea because the person in question has no medical knowledge about dosage, frequency, drug interactions, etc. There is a reason that doctors and pharmacists have to learn all that stuff in school. Also, a depressed or anxious person is not in a good state of mind to prescribe themselves medications, especially those that significantly impair judgement like alcohol and marijuana. \n\nAlcohol and marijuana themselves are not considered cures for anxiety or depression in that they do not facilitate the changing of brain chemistry that antidepressants do. The effect that they might have on soothing a depressed mind is psychological, not neurological. Also, marijuana has been known to even cause anxiety and panic in some people. It is not an anti-anxiety drug. \n\nThe last thing is that alcohol especially has a huge amount of negative side effects that are much more severe than traditional antidepressants. In the short term, it severely impairs a person's judgement, leaving them liable to violence, accidents, etc. It greatly disables a person from doing normal activities, which antidepressants don't. Also, in the longer term it is very physically addictive and contraindicates with a huge number of drugs - exactly what a depressed person doesn't need.",
"Alcohol is a depressant . It would make things worse. I have seen cannabis cause paranoia In a depressed person. Not sure if paranoia is a common side effect in depressed people."
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1w7cvg | the genetics of skin color | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1w7cvg/the_genetics_of_skin_color/ | {
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"Skin colour is controlled by many genetic and environmental factors, and the environment you live in also influences how your genes are expressed. \n\nIn my high school biology class, the teacher said it is controlled by about three genes, which we will call A, B, and C. A being the dominant allele and a being the recessive allele. The more dominant alleles you have, the darker your skin is. \n\nFor example, an aabbcc person would have very light skin. AaBbCc and AABBCC would have roughly the same shade. \n\nI'm not sure how accurate or how large a part in skin colour those three genes are. "
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46hv8s | if i do 10 push-ups every hour for 10 hours, will my muscles gain as much as doing 100 push-ups at once? 50 push-ups per hour for two hours? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/46hv8s/eli5_if_i_do_10_pushups_every_hour_for_10_hours/ | {
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"If you ran 10 metres every hour compared to you running 1km.\n\nWhich would tire you more?\n\nWhich would benefit you more? \n\nWould you even feel the 10 metres? \n\nWith push ups, the idea is to start small and gradually increase your reps as you're more comfortable with it. You want to push your limit every couple of days, rather than just do something that you can easily do (a lot of times) which doesn't tear up your muscles and so no change. You're only gonna stay toned at your current mass. ",
"Generally the rule is: high rep, low weight= better stamina. low rep, high weight= better strength. Muscles get bigger by being torn (working out) and then rebuilding. If you do 10 push-ups every hour you aren't really working out muscles, causing tears in the muscle, which will then not regrow. 100 push-ups at once would lead to more tearing of the muscles (and therefore more regrowth). Muscle tearing= more muslce. This doesn't mean 100 push-ups at once is the best way to go, again you want to maximize the tearing of muscles. ",
"Ultimately? It depends on a lot more factors. To quickly answer your question, if 10 pushups were enough to 'damage' your muscles enough for repair, then yes, in theory it would be the same (assuming you were getting your sleep for growth hormone to take its affect, diet to supply nourishment, etc). The mechanism behind muscle gain is a lot more complicated and a bit counter intuitive than most people think. A sure fire way to generate more force for any given exercise is by having a bigger, longer, muscle. So I'll expand your question so it becomes, what is a good way to increase muscle gain the \"easiest\" (and I use that term loosely). \n\nI'll use your push ups as an example. You have two phases in a push-up. Concentric and Eccentric. When you are laying on the ground flat and pushing up, that is Concentric. When you drop back down, thats Eccentric. When focusing on Concentric parts, you put more metabolic stress..you're pushing your own weight up, so that makes sense. That must mean that an easy way for muscle gain is to focus on concentric phases while upping the weight! Wrong. Turns out, when you lengthen the muscle eccentrically (i.e. the falling down phase of a push-up), two things are happening here. \n\n1. Eccentric contractions encourage protein synthesis because it is here that phosphatidic acid splashes the muscles like a hose splashing an attention seeking hot chick at a wet t-shirt contest. Turns out muscles love that shit. \n\n2. Activation of satellite cells. These cells are located on the outside of muscles, and they respond to damage in their vicinity by transforming into immature muscle fibers. More specifically, they move to the damaged area and fuse to muscle, becoming a part of it. So the more nuclei, the more growth potential bruh.\n\nGreat, so eccentric contractions are where its at! I'll just add extra weight on my back when I drop down on my push ups, going really really slow, making my muscles burn. Right? Then I can be like Ahnold. Right?! \n\nTurns out, research has shown that faster speed eccentric contractions result in a release of more growth factors, more satellite cells, and greater protein synthesis than slow speed eccentric contractions. The slower you go, that muscle tension (between Myosin and Actin, i.e. [Nature's ballsack of power](_URL_0_)) have to develop additional 'cross bridge' connections, which means less stress, which means less damage, which means less growth. \n\nSo the key here is take 2-3 seconds to go down, but with heavier weight in eccentric contractions. That is literally the 'best' way to grow muscle scientifically. ",
"Muscle growth happens because your body grows in new tissue to repair the tears caused by straining them. It's not just force that causes those tears, it's the force they're subject to over time without a chance to rest.",
"When you're trying to build muscle, you want to put some strain on your muscle, the more the better. The problem with doing many many pushups is that even though they feel like they become harder. It is actually the lactic acid build up that you are now fighting rather than all your energy being put into the muscles to do the best they can. Doing small amounts of reps means you're getting that power pushup on each pushup.",
"You'll do a lot better but I don't know if you'll do 100 at once.\n\nSounds like \"Greasing the Groove\", something fitness people do. ",
"Think of your muscles like a plane. It has a few different methods of propulsion: propellers which can carry it for a long time, jets which can provide sustained power for a short time, and afterburners for a quick burst of speed. If it only has to do a quick climb of 100 metres every hour, then the designers can get away with having pretty short lasting jets or some longer lasting afterburners. If it has to climb 1000 metres every 10 hours then it will have to be built to have some long lasting jets, or powerful propellers, because the afterburners won't be able to last that long. \n\nThis is basically how your muscles adapt to stresses. They have a few different methods of energy production (ATP and creatine-phosphate for fast and powerful, anaerobic and then aerobic for longer lasting) and depending on how you train them they will be better \"designed\" or adapted by your body to match the training. Sparse short training gives the muscles plenty of time to regain fuel from fat stores and eating, so they will not really have to grow or adapt. Heavy training for a short time will cause them to adapt and have certain energy systems work for longer by storing more energy (Push-ups would likely be in the creatine-phosphate to anaerobic region) and to store more energy the size of you muscles will have to increase to store more glycogen and sarcoplasm.",
"The bro science in this thread is real, anyways\n\nShort answer: yes. Hypertrophy (the signal that tells your body it has to build muscle) doesnt work on a specific time frame like magazines would have you believe. For all intensive purposes if you did 100 pushups in 10 hours or in 30 minutes the same cumulative work load has been accomplished.\n\nLong answer: only for a little while. Push ups in general are not a very efficient exercise. They are a movement everyone should be able to do at least a few of. However what you will find is you will build muscle to do more push ups until a push up is simply not enough work for your body to induce hypertrophy no matter how many reps. You will need to increase the difficulty by adding weight in some form to continue. It's a basic law of adaptation. Humans only build muscle as a nessecity. You have to subject a muscle to a total cumulative work load that is on the verge of too much to handle in any time frame in order to make it grow. This is the basis of all high frequency training programs. Doing low to medium reps with 85%+ of someones max, but doing that multiple times a week. Doing 100 push ups over 10 hours is very similar to that. However you will eventually just be wasting your time.",
"The ELI5 version is this:\n\nYour body will adapt to be stronger (more force output) or more enduring (same output for longer) based on whatever you throw at it. The only real condition is that this \"reasonably challenges\" your body; this doesn't mean you have to hit the *upper limit* of what your body can do, just that you have to work enough to make your body say \"this is hard, I need to be able to do this more easily!\" \n\nThe answer, therefore, is no. Your muscles will have time to reset themselves between each set and you won't see any real improvements. Because you aren't actually straining your body in any significant way, your body has no reason to improve; the activity isn't difficult enough to bring out a response. On the other hand, doing 100 all at once would cause your muscles to tire out--this would prompt your body to develop better endurance.\n\nThis isn't a linear situation, there's basically just a vague zone at which \"if you push your body at least this much, you'll get a response\" with more pushing creating a greater response.\n\nYou can kind of apply the same logic that you would apply to yourself. No matter how good or bad you are at something, there's never a reason to get any better if your current skills are consistently good enough. You only try to improve when you start to find things too hard. Your muscles are the same; they won't bother to improve a whole lot unless you actually strain them.",
"Well, I certainly applaud anyone wanting to do a hundred pushups, but take it from this old gym rat, I've spent my entire adult life in the gym, and a program like this one can do more harm than good.\n\nIf you only train one part of your body (and that's all a single exercise like pushups is going to do for you), you're setting yourself up for injuries down the road. I've seen it a hundred times.\n\nIt's like putting a powerful engine in a stock Toyota Tercel. What will you accomplish? You'll blow out the drive train, the clutch, the transmission, etc., because those factory parts aren't designed to handle the power of an engine much more powerful than the factory installed engine.\n\nPush-ups basically only train the chest muscles and to some extent, the triceps. What you really want to do is train your entire body, all the major muscle groups (chest, back, abdomen, legs, shoulders and arms) at the same time, over the course of a workout. And don't forget your cardiovascular work!\n\nI'm proud of you guys wanting to do this. Three cheers! Falling in love with exercise, eating right, etc., is one of the greatest things you can do for yourself. And you WILL fall in love with it if you can just force yourself to stick with it a year or two and experience the amazing progress you'll make.\n\nBut do it right, okay?\n\nMy advice, find a good gym, with qualified trainers who will design your programs for you (especially in the beginning, until you get the hang of it yourself) and guide you in your quest for physical fitness. Thirty to 45 minutes a day, three days a week, is all you'll ever need to do (I refuse to believe anyone is so busy that he or she cannot make time for that, especially considering how important it is).\n\nAnd don't worry about being embarrassed or not being in shape the first time you walk into the gym. You have to start somewhere and almost every one of us were there ourselves at one time. So no one will say anything to you and very, very quickly you will progress way beyond that stage anyway.\n\nNow get out there and do it! :-)",
"No, they aren't equivalent. The law of diminishing returns applies which means the more you do, the benefits start diminishing after a certain point. Muscles are living fibers and will start to \"tear\" faster (breaking down of the internal cells to coax them to build new, stronger fibers) which means you'll have to rest them longer for them to rebuild strength. You also have to consider lactic acid buildup. That's why people lay emphasis on reps or repetitions so that you exercise certain muscles intensely for a short time and let them rest before stressing them again. ",
"A variant: Will doing 100 push ups every day make you gain muscle faster than 100 push ups every 2 days? Surely muscles need recovery time?",
"Regardless of what you want to gain (muscle, strength?), if you can do 100 pushups at once, then doing 10 doesn't do anything for you. You need to do sets that are hard or semihard, that you could do 0-5 more reps. Spreading the sets out helps you rest in between sets. Resting completely helps with strength gains. It's not necessarily the best way to gain muscle mass.",
"You \"gain\" strength when the muscle repairs itself, so if you don't give the body time to rest and rebuild between workouts you will probably gain less.",
"As someone who did something similar in the past, if your plan is to get better at doing pushups then I would recommend doing them more frequently. You won't necessarily get a whole lot stronger but if it's something you want to get better at doing than you could do them every hour. Source: Did 25 pushups every hour of every day from when I woke up for a month or so.\n",
"If doing 10 reps of an exercise at once is challenging for you, you will gain muscle effectively from it. But as you get stronger, the muscle gain from this exercise will gradually decline, transitioning from strength and hyperthrophy to mostly endurance (which doesn't stimulate muscle growth as much). \n\nAs a rule of thumb, once you can consistently do 3 sets of 10-15 reps, you'd better move to a harder exercise for the same muscle group (e.g. where you only can do 5-8 per set). This is called progressive overload, and is the core principle of strength training and muscle gain. With a weights workout, you add more weight, and with a bodyweight workout, you make the exercise harder.\n\nHere's an example of how you can progressively make a pushup harder depending on your strength level:\n\n- wall pushups (great for obese or recovering from injury)\n- incline pushups (e.g. from a table)\n- knee pushups\n- full pushups\n- diamond pushups (hands together)\n- uneven pushups (one hand further to the side)\n- more uneven pushups (placing one hand further and further away, e.g. on a bench)\n- one arm pushups with feet wide apart\n- one arm pushups with feet closer together\n\nIf you want to learn more, welcome to /r/bodyweightfitness/!\n\nEdit to answer the original question: if you can do 100 reps per set, doing 10 reps per set with 1 hour rest between sets will be too easy to cause any noticeable strength adaptation. So the first option is clearly superior (but still not effective, as explained above).",
"my personal rule is the number you do doesn't really matter it's the how. For example you could set yourself at 5 reps of 20 with a 60-90 second break between each set. the problem with that is for the first 3 sets you may hit 20 without much effort meaning you really didn't push yourself.\n\nNow the way i do it is don't even worry with the number just do 3-5 sets but don't stop each set till you are totally burnt out. On the 1st set you may hit 30+ but the second you will be lucky to get past 15. By the 3rd set just to crack 10 is a major effort. \n\nI find this a better way as it meant on every set not just the last 1 or 2 you actually caused tears in the muscle. In doing so means 1. your body needs the energy to repair the tears once it's taken all it can from what you eat it takes it from your fat. 2nd by trading out fat for muscle it means the average amount of food you have to eat increases. If you don't meet that food need it takes from the takes from the fat and the muscle. \n\nThe rookie mistake people make is they often think that working their abs will give them a 6pac but the reality is those muscles are small and as sore as they get you aren't gonna see them if they are hidden under a layer of fat.\n\nThe best way to get fast weight loss is to hit your quads and you calf muscles with high resistance reps. The muscles in your legs require a lot of energy to repair tears caused during your workout. If you stick to a clean diet the food you eat won't cover it and it will come out of your fat. But the bonus is as i said before as they get bigger being such a large mass for muscle it will take more and more food to fuel your body. So even on your rest days you will burn more fat ",
"Do this for 3 years, every single day: 100 sit ups, 100 push ups, 10km run, no AC in hot weather, 3 meals a day, but only a banana as breakfast.",
"Fully ELI5'D: 100 at once will benefit more.\n\nImagine your muscles are one side in a trench war, and the muscle tearing is the offensive force. You want the offensive forces to win, but not without losses. The faster the forces close in on the muscles operating base, the more muscle is torn - but if you go too fast with your pushup, then the forces can't get to the operating base (you don't tear all the muscle you can.) The offensive forces need 2-3 seconds to make it to the operating base without reinforcements being sent.\n\nIf you split up the offensive forces attack waves into ten, there are fewer attackers, and so less muscle will be torn and rebuilt.",
"Bigger muscles? No. Better muscle response? Probably.\n\nThe idea is called [greasing the groove,](_URL_0_) in which you are strengthening the synaptic response of that particular movement like muscle memory.",
"Rule of thumb is \n\nMore weight, less reps = stronger muscle\n\nLess weight, more reps = bigger muscles",
"My coworkers and I do 20 push ups (some do more) every hour throughout the day. Definitely noticed results (muscle mass and endurance) by the end of the second week.\n\nBonus - it makes the work day go by faster and works better than coffee.",
"No. In sort biologically speaking it is because you will be using different muscle fibers for each, slow-twitch fibers for the 10 every hour and fast-twitch fibers for 100 push ups at once. The existence of different muscle fibers explains some of the often contradictory nature of fitness advice. A quick search for the difference between the muscle fibers related to exercise came up with [this](_URL_0_)",
"One hundred push-ups. One hundred sit-ups. One hundred squats. And run 10 kilometers. Every Day!! This is the key to success. ",
"Your gains will be the result of taking the muscle past its ability to perform. Your body builds muscle when and only when it has to. It consumes a lot of resources doing it and only allocates the resources when it is repeatedly taken up to the point of failure. Know your body, listen to it. High enough rep count to exhaust the short term energy supply. Basically you should always be aiming for a goal that is just out of reach. If you can do 15 but not 16, aim for 20, you'll get there, then aim for 25. Don't worry about not making it. The gains are occurring in those last few hard ones.",
"Currently in a USASOC unit in the Army, obviously push-ups are a big deal on the PT test and a lot of soldiers have issues with it. One thing we started doing with soldiers who had low push-ups on the PT test was 10 an hour Monday for the entire work day (usually 0600-1700). then the following day 20, then 30 and so on until Friday we were all doing 50 an hour for the whole day. Soldiers would rest over the weekend and absolutely smash the PT test the following Monday. ",
"No -- particularly to \"If I do 10 push-ups every hour for 10 hours.\"\n\nMuscle gains come from breaking down your muscles and the following recovery. If you're only doing 10 push-ups every hour, you're not breaking down your muscles as much since you're giving yourself too much rest in between each set. If you do 100 push-ups in one sitting, your muscles breakdown more and your body is more inclined to adapt to that kind of session. It simply takes more muscle to do 100 push-ups in one session than it does 10 push-ups every hour. \n\nHowever, there are benefits to doing a low amount of reps every hour. Doing so will increase your neuromuscular 'efficiency' for future exercise. Basically, the muscle fibers associated with the exercise (push-ups) are being recruited and used more effectively. This will increase your strength and ability to do the exercise you're doing, but if you don't make an effort to increase the intensity, results are going to come much slower.\n\nEdit: Obviously people have different limits, so when we're talking about 100-reps, let's assume we're talking about a general heavy session. If you're comfortable with doing 100-reps (congrats), then it becomes a matter of changing up the version (hands closer together, etc.) and possibly increasing your reps even more. If you can only do 10-reps, then that's your version of a heavy session, so the alternative would be to do a fraction of that every hour. ",
"\"I don't count my situps, I only start counting when it starts hurting, when I feel pain, that's when I start counting, cause that's when it really counts.\" Muhammad Ali",
"Is this normal for replies in this sub? Responses are proliferate with bro-science on this topic. How does one parse out the legitimate answers from the made up ones? ",
"Burnouts push your muscles to new limits. 10 every hour will only keep you anti-catabolic... maybe. So Burnout sets of any kind are the best.",
"I had a similar version of this question, how many can I do in an hour vs all day? So in one hour, doing a max set every 5 minutes I did 500 push ups. A week later I did a max set every hour (same number of sets) and I got to 1500. Not sure how to control for the fact that the first workout might have made me stronger for the second, but its not 3 times stronger so I think it proves the magnitude of the point. ",
"You gain muscle from strain. The muscle gets over-worked and has to grow to compensate. \n\nIt's like: \"Oh shit, wtf are you doing to me? We're doing this from now on? I must grow in order to deal with this. For if I don't, an animal will eat us.\" \n\nYou strain your muscles by clustering the workout together. \"No pain, no gain\" is true to a degree. The pain comes from strain. If you space the workout out, your muscles aren't being challenged. If your muscles aren't being challenged; They have no reason to grow. Your muscles grow to cope with the exertion.\n\n\nIf you suck at push ups; Do as many as you can, take a couple minute break, then do as may as you, repeat. 15 minute workouts are back to back, and fast. 45 minute workouts are a little slower and measured.",
"The only true workout regardless of how:\n100 pushups\n100 sit-ups\n100 squats \nAnd a 10 kilometer run"
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6t3sh3 | when they say the spacetime is curved, where exactly does this curve go? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6t3sh3/eli5_when_they_say_the_spacetime_is_curved_where/ | {
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"When we say that spacetime is curved, it's using a familiar terminology to explain a concept.\n\nThe spacetime doesn't curve like you could curve a piece of paper, it's not the same thing. We simply use the same language because it's a similar concept mathematically."
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yh85l | north korea and how bad is it over there exactly? | I know they are a dictatorship and Kim Jong Il was someone that was very out of touch with reality, but how bad is it over there for the average citizen? The internet makes it seem like they are a bunch of brainwashed people. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/yh85l/eli5_north_korea_and_how_bad_is_it_over_there/ | {
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"Heartbreaking video of malnourished children. \n\n_URL_0_\n\nMy grandparents escaped North Korea. They may still have family alive there. But probably not. My grandfather has some amazing and sad stories. "
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1s95qk | vector images and rasterized images | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1s95qk/eli5_vector_images_and_rasterized_images/ | {
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"A vector image is like a math equation. You can zoom in on it forever because the math will always fill in the details for you.\n\nA rasterized image is like a [lite brite](_URL_0_), where the pixels are the little light bulbs. Every pixel is a set color, and all the pixels are in set rows and columns. The only way to get more detail is to add more light bulbs.\n\nThis is why a high-resolution rasterized image has a much bigger file size. Every time you double the resolution of an image, you have to add double the amount of light bulbs in both directions (horizontal and vertical), resulting in a file that is 4x bigger.\n\nBut with a vector image, you can zoom in our out infinitely in either direction, and the file stays the same size. That's because the \"image\" is just a set of math equations, and the computer turns it into an image at whatever size you want."
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8c0476 | why is it bad to wear contacts for multiple days or even weeks without removing them? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8c0476/eli5_why_is_it_bad_to_wear_contacts_for_multiple/ | {
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"Contacts suffocate your eyeball which then leads to permanent total blindness, also they need to be cleaned regularly. \n\nmy sister was a long time contact wearer and had to have surgery to insert specially-made contacts into her eyes to prevent this. ",
"Your eyeballs need oxygen. Even the thin breathable contacts prevent you eyes from getting it. For best results take them out at night before bed and then read or watch YouTube or Reddit for an hour and then go to sleep.",
"The eyes need oxygen, like others have said. But the important part is that your eyes will grow more tiny blood vessels to get more oxygen. And these blood vessels can eventually grow so dense that they block your vision and you go blind. It's terrifying. ",
"Contact lens like to collect stuff, such as protein deposits, mucous, and possibly bacteria/other bad organisms. If they aren't cleaned, they can act like petri dishes and allow the bad stuff to grow like crazy, causing infections that could scar the eye it possibly vision loss. Also, like someone else said, your eyes need oxygen. It's kind of like taking your socks off when you get home. No one should wear their socks for days on end. Let them breath!",
"Just like the guy in the video the other commenter posted, I got an infection in my eye from sleeping with my contacts all the time, not cleaning them enough.\n\nThen I got a scratch on my eye and all the bacteria from the contact infected it. The bacteria ate almost completely through my cornea, I was really close to losing the eye altogether. \n\nNot just the eye is important in that situation, it's very dangerous to have an infection like that that close to the brain.\n\nSo, without a $20,000 cornea transplant (that may only last for 10 years) I'm blind in that eye. And the pain, my lord the pain was excruciating. I've cut the end of my thumb off, bone and all, and it didn't hurt like that. While the infection was raging, hurting like hell, the doc had to inject antibiotics into the eye. I could have sworn he stuck that needle all the way through the back of my eyeball, but it only went in a millimeter. Trust me \"stick a needle in my eye\" is a legitimately horrifying thing.\n\nClean your contacts every single day, and never sleep with them in"
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2bn11o | how are era names chosen? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2bn11o/eli5_how_are_era_names_chosen/ | {
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"Eras of what?",
"Are you talking about the eras of earth's history?\n\nThe most recent eras are Cenozoic, Mesozoic, and Paleozoic.\n\nAll come from Greek:\n\nPaleozoic: from the Greek words for \"old life,\" and spanned from around 500 million to 250 million years ago (these are rough numbers). This era saw the first animals, the huge spread of life everywhere, and the biggest extinction event (like 95% plus of all species) ever in the world's history.\n\nMesozoic: from the Greek for \"middle life.\" The rise of dinosaurs, flowering plants, lots of pleasant ferns. Ended by a huge meteor (probably) that you've almost definitely heard of.\n\nCenozoic: Greek for \"new life.\" Dominated by the growth and spread of mammals including an odd erect-standing primate species that soon populated the globe, wreaking havoc on ecosystems and altering the natural resources available to many regions. No extinction event has ended it yet. Fingers crossed."
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d04t6a | how does an rgb tv make yellow? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d04t6a/eli5_how_does_an_rgb_tv_make_yellow/ | {
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"Yellow is only a primary color in subtractive mixing, i.e. something like paint. In additive color mixing such as a tv screen, it is not a primary color. As a result the answer to your question is that the R, G, and B signal are mixed at specific ratios to achieve a golden hue of varying shades and intensities."
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58rdgt | why is "talking about it" therapeutic? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/58rdgt/eli5_why_is_talking_about_it_therapeutic/ | {
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"Another reason is that the place where thinking happens is also the place where words happen. By talking about something that bothers you in a productive way (not venting or ruminating, but rather with a deepening process of explaining, exploring, expressing, reflecting, and making meaning), you are altering the way your brain is lit up into a way that feels better. With repeated practice, you build up new connections in your brain. So the therapeutic effect is also biological in nature (we think), which is one reason why the gold standard for all new research into psychotherapy must demonstrate that change is maintained over time.",
"When we recall a memory our brain does what is called RMAO memory or Read Many Access Once memory. Simply, every time a memory is recalled, it is rewritten back to the brain.\n\nBecause of RMAO memory recalling the same memory multiple times _morphs_ the memory building new connections, and strengthens old connections. This has the a side effect of neutralizing trauma. It also helps one explore and learn new things creating a process of growth and self discovery."
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3ci5um | why is there no b# or cb note (the note that would be between a b and a c) on musical instruments? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ci5um/eli5_why_is_there_no_b_or_cb_note_the_note_that/ | {
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"Let's go back to around the 10th (and arguably 9th) century, to the beginnings of notated western music. By this I mean Gregorian chant. This music relied on a very simple range of notes, much less than what we recognise today: back then, the concept of chromatics or chromatic harmony (i.e. half step alterations of notes, or sharps and flats) simply did not exist. Melodies were simple, and (very early on in the development of chant) had no harmony to support them.\n\nAs music theorists began to develop ideas on how to organise music, the church modes came into being. These would become what we recognise today as the basic, seven note scales that can be played by playing all the white keys from one white key to the same one an octave up (for example: playing all the white notes from C to C an octave up gives what we recognise as a major scale). These scales were made up of tones (jumps of two semitones, i.e. from C to D) and semitones (jumps of one semitone, i.e. from E to F). The only semitone jumps in these scales were the jumps between B and C, and between E and F. All the other jumps were tone jumps.\n\nAs theorists and composers explored harmony ever more deeply, they began (as early as the 12th century but only properly in the 14th century) to explore the idea of chromatics: notes which were half-step alterations of the basic seven notes of the church modes (for example, going up from C to C#, where before you only would have gone up to D).\n\nBecause the jumps from B to C and from E to F were already naturally half-steps, it was not possible for them to be altered chromatically and that, OP, is why the notes of B and E aren't sharpened (when looking at a keyboard), and why the notes of C and F aren't flattened (when looking at a keyboard).\n\nThere are frequent cases where an odd key signature requires that you sharpen an E (or something similar), but that's another issue altogether!\n\nI hope I helped :)"
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6c3l1b | how did russia's retreat in the napoleonic wars and wwii "force" the enemy to come further into russia? | What I want to know is, how does retreating FORCE the enemy to advance? Surely it makes sense that if the defenders retreat it gives more time for the attackers to ready their supply lines and such and get ready for another push if the defenders retreated further towards Moscow, however I have heard often that Russia played an amazing war of attrition by 'forcing' enemies to move - is there a reason to advance with little supply rather than stay and gather strength? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6c3l1b/eli5_how_did_russias_retreat_in_the_napoleonic/ | {
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"The French Army had developed a system of \"living off the land\" when they were engaged in combat. This worked pretty well in densely populated and well developed Europe. Russia on the other hand didn't have as much stuff available for forage/looting, and Russia made it a habit to take or destroy everything they could as they were retreating. The French were somewhat aware of these issues and had built up supplies before the start of the campaign, but they were envisioning a fairly short affair where they pushed into and defeated Russia over the coarse of like 6 weeks. This means France didn't have the option of \"gather strength\". By pulling back and denying France its quick victory their options were either \"admit defeat and pull back to Poland & Prussia\" or \"Push on and try to beat the Russians\". Attempting to stop in Russia would have simply used up what supplies were available. \n \nTL;DR: There wasn't enough stuff in Russia to keep the French supplied. So they either had to win big or go home. ",
"Well if you are trying to smash a countries army and destroy it, and they start running away, you follow. How else will you smash them?\n\nOnly thing is Napoleon and Hitler both underestimated how huge Russia is, and how cold their winters get. \n\nThe Russians knew both things well and used them to their advantage. \n\nBoth advancing armies wanted to capture Moscow, as that would be the symbol of Russia's defeat. But certainly either Napoleon or Hitler could have stopped at any time, but the thought amongst aggressive attackers is that it's better to keep pressing the attack, as stopping gives the defenders time to regroup and build static defenses such as forts, which then makes it exponentially harder to attack them when you resume the advance."
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2g6zaz | what's the difference between murder and culpable homicide? | I've been asked about this on Twitter, by someone who is struggling to understand how Oscar Prestorious can be not guilty of murder, when he knowingly fired four shots into a bathroom where he believed an intruder to be. She says, even if he thought it was an intruder, the mere fact that he shot with the intention to kill another human being makes it murder. Can somebody please explain the legal differences and why those differences are an important aspect of a fair justice system?
I'm an anthropologist, not a lawyer, so even though I (mostly) understand the differences, I can't break it down and explain it in a way that would be useful at all. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2g6zaz/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_murder_and/ | {
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"Pistorius was charged with premeditated murder, which implies that he had planned on killing Steenkamp at some time in the future, meaning if he hadn't killed her that night, he would have killed her some other time. In the eyes of the judge, the prosecutors didn't prove that he had planned out her murder, so she ruled in Pistorius' favor. \n\nHe was found guilty of culpable homicide, which implies he may not have meant to kill her. Pistorius claims he thought she was a home invader. The judge found him guilty of culpable homicide because he was negligent: he didn't call the police, he didn't give whoever he thought was inside the bathroom any opportunity to escape, he simply fired through the door, which killed her.\n\nEDIT: Spelling.",
"'I killed you because I meant to' versus 'I killed you but it was an accident, but I'm responsible anyway because I was doing something dangerous and stupid'",
"People tend to use terms like \"murder\" interchangeably with \"killed\" or other variations but these crimes have specific definitions which can vary depending on the location. \n\nIn this case \"premeditated murder\" is defined as an unlawful killing that is both willful and premeditated, meaning that it was committed after planning. The prosecutor was unable to prove Pistorius planned ahead of time to kill Steenkamp.\n\nHe was found guilty of \"culpable homicide\", which is defined as the unlawful negligent killing of a human being. Basically, the court ruled that Pistorius didn't plan to murder his girlfriend, he killed her with his reckless behavior. ",
"South African law student here. \n\nSo without getting into my opinion about the decision made by Masipa J today.\n\nIn South African law, as with other legal systems, fault is an element of every crime. It takes one of two forms: intention (dolus) or negligence (culpa). All common-law crimes require intention except for culpable homicide. \n\nIn South Africa culpable homicide is the equivalent to American manslaughter. So basically as has been said Pistorius was charged with premeditated murder among other charges. Masipa J found that Pistorius had no intention to kill Reeva Steenkamp or any person that night but was negligent in firing his firearm into a bathroom door, and thus he was at fault.\n\nSo to answer your question, murder in the South African legal context has to happen with the intention to kill. Culpable homicide is merely negligence that resulted in the death of a person.",
"Murder is the unlawful killing of a person by another person. Homicide is the killing of one person by another. There are different levels of homicide with murder being the most severe. These levels in the US are usually called degrees but in other common law system they have a different names but the underlying definitions are similar. \n\n1st degree murder- the premeditated murder of another. generally it is the killing of another person with malice aforethought. For example, I get a gun and hide in the bushes in front of your home and when you leave I shoot and kill you. I obviously planned it and knew it was wrong, I took precautions not to be discovered and gathered the tools to do it. \n\n2nd degree murder- murder without premediation. You and I are talking at a bar, we get into an argument I grab a knife off the table and stab you to death. I didn't plan it, but it is still unlawful.\n\n3rd and 4th degree are generally manslaughter. Manslaughter is when you do something that is reckless that leads to another's death. I fire my gun into the air and the bullet falls through a roof and kills a sleeping child. It wasn't my intention to kill anyone, it wasn't even probable it would kill anyone but it was reckless and a reasonable person would agree that it was a needless risk that led to someone's death. This is the range where Oscars conviction sits. These kinds of homicides actually have the most variations between jurisdiction.\n\nBut in the end what the Verdict says is that it wasnt his intention to murder his girlfriend, and that her death was caused by reckless actions. "
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23mtha | why is washington dc such a dangerous place to live when it's the capital of america? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/23mtha/eli5_why_is_washington_dc_such_a_dangerous_place/ | {
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"Washington DC is high crime because it consists almost soley of high density urban areas, and many of those areas have a large population of poor people. It's not that different from other areas of a similar makeup.",
"It's the 16th most-violent city in America. Less dangerous than Detroit, New Haven, and Little Rock. I think you're dealing with stereotypes from the 80s: _URL_0_",
"I live in DC and it's not that dangerous anymore. It used to be way, way more dangerous in the 80's and early 90's. Now almost all of the violent crime that happens is confined to certain neighborhoods. They are the poorest neighborhoods and as with every other urban area on the planet, the poorest neighborhoods are where the crime happens.\n\nYou mentioned SE DC specifically. Well, this income distribution map should explain that for you: _URL_0_"
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a5efwu | how does water get to my sink or shower? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a5efwu/eli5_how_does_water_get_to_my_sink_or_shower/ | {
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"Water flows into pipes in the walls and under the house from pressurized pipes under the street, or from a pump in a well if you live in the country.\n\nThese pipes run through the walls, bringing water to the various sinks ands toilets and baths. One pipe also goes to a hot water heater, which uses electricity or fuels to heat the water, which is then also piped to your sinks and such. It takes a while for the water to get hot, because the water in the pipes in the walls cools off when not flowing, and all that water needs to flow out first, before hot water from the heater reaches you."
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6zmgna | how are undocumented immigrants in the us able to do things like enroll in schools or get a driving license? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6zmgna/eli5_how_are_undocumented_immigrants_in_the_us/ | {
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"Enforcing immigration is the federal government's job. The states have no obligation to spend their own money enforcing immigration law. It's not their problem to enforce the laws.\n\nSome states take this to mean that they'll just ignore immigration status. These states don't want children running around uneducated - they'd rather make sure that all children become productive adults that are useful members of society than have a bunch of illiterate kids with no option but to turn to crime. They don't want drivers running around uninsured and unlicensed - they want to make sure everyone has passed driving tests and carries insurance. They don't care if you're legally in the country as long as you're paying your state taxes.\n\nThen you have the legal system. Cops know that if illegal immigrants are afraid of coming to the police because they might get deported, **nobody will come to the police**. This means nobody reports crimes, nobody will testify against actual violent criminals and you're creating an underclass of residents that \"bad criminals\" can freely prey on without worrying about repercussions. \n\nEven the federal government, as a whole, isn't operating as a unified front. The IRS doesn't care about reporting illegal immigrants to the Immigration authorities as long as they're paying taxes.",
"A lot of them do have SSNs, only those SSNs aren't technically theirs. They use them for the purpose of working and paying taxes. Many never get driver's licenses. ",
"The laws vary by state, but generally there's someone willing to hire people and pay cash, and someone willing to take cash for rent and such. Once you have an address, and bills coming to that address, you can prove you live there. Depending on the state, sometimes that's all you need to enroll your child in school or do get enrolled in school yourself.\n\nDriver's licenses are trickier, some states allow undocumented immigrants to get them and some don't. other things are basically a cash for goods and services deal. \n\nOf course there's also the chance they purchase fake documentation, and use that for an easier time of some of the processes. But even without that it's possible to live on the edge of the law without attracting much notice."
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5kr3p4 | how are phones locked? | I had a iPhone that's locked to Net10, but it had some issues so I took it to the store where they ended up giving me a new one. I thought the new one wouldn't be locked but it still was so I was wondering how exactly are phones locked either through software or hardware? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5kr3p4/eli5_how_are_phones_locked/ | {
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"I'm not sure the exact method used, but I do know that it's software related. I did tech support at a call center for a while and we'd get people calling to ask us to unlock their device. We of course had to explain that beyond the factory default hardware and software, we know nothing; this always led to pointing them to their network provider to get the code. Mind you networks are jealous bastards and would rarely give it to them. \n\n & nbsp;LPT: if you want to get your phone unlocked, go to your carrier and tell them you're planning to go out of country (Europe or Asia, something to that effect) and explain that you'll want to use your phone while you're there. Other countries don't have the same carriers we do and so they'll often unlock it for you expecting that you'll come back to them.",
"I've worked with this. As in, actually implementing SIM-locking for GSM/3G/4G phones.\n\nI (and other HW vendors) call it \"SIM Locking\", as what we're telling the software is: \"only accept SIM-cards issued by the following carrier(s)\"\n\nWe're not actually locking the phone into a specific carrier network, as your phone should still be able to \"roam\" on other networks when your home network (as in, your carriers network) isn't available (abroad on a trip for instance).\n\nThe lock is implemented in software running on the _modem_ CPU (and sometimes even a secure enclave in the modem CPU). As in, a completely different CPU than the one running iOS/Android. It's (usually) pretty secured software, as we (HW vendor) would be liable towards the carrier to protect their interests.\n\nThis means, no amount of rooting or jailbreaking would affect the SIM Lock. The process for breaking the SIM lock is called \"unlocking\" in those circles.\n\nThis is for GSM phones. CDMA phones work a bit differently."
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2xalry | why does everything you mix together turn brown? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2xalry/eli5_why_does_everything_you_mix_together_turn/ | {
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"Pigments absorb some colors and reflect others. Mix a bunch of different ones together and it ends up absorbing most of the color and then reflecting some of the light so you get a dark mass of brown "
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35hk6j | what is the reality and truth behind the ads that say "earn $5,000 per week while working at home." | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/35hk6j/eli5_what_is_the_reality_and_truth_behind_the_ads/ | {
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"The truth is almost all of those require you to purchase products from a company and then resell them to whoever you can (normally family and friends). They have many ways of hiding this fact for as long as possible but almost all of them come down that simple concept.\n\n\"Buy our product and resale it for more than you bought it for.\"",
"The reality is that you normally pay a fee upfront to join the program only then to fail to make any money for various reasons, the company you gave the money to is happy and move on to scam someone else.\n\nEDIT: Spelling",
"Some of the more basic ones are nothing but data mining - they take the details you provide when you apply for their fantastic opportunity - and they sell them to somebody else, somebody who loves getting the contact details of a gullible person - they're all over Gumtree at the moment. ",
"I heard that another scam was for people to buy goods from the internet with stolen credit cards and have them sent to your address. You then send the goods onto the new buyers and the credit thieves don't a have a paper trail that leads back to them, only to you. I probably read this on reddit, so not much of a source.",
"The other one I'm aware of is essentially assisting with money laundering. They find the opportunistic and not-too-far-thinking people who are willing to have money transferred into their accounts from overseas and to then forward it on to another account. Most countries have limits beyond which any transfer raises electronic red flags - some organised crime gets around this by using not-so-bright people who don't quite get the idea that something-for-nothing is probably illegal (or who don't care). And the 5K per week is I guess a 'potential ceiling' for what they claim you'll earn for doing this.",
"There are more legitimate things called CPA advertisements (cost-per-action) where instead of getting a user to click a link its something else, like filling a form or survey - but each payout is much higher than adwords payouts - So if you use your time effectively, used the right campaigns, and have enough web admin resources - you could make a living income from doing it full-time... but is it worth doing? I dunno, i tried for a little while and there seemed to be a pretty harsh learning curve, since you did need to spend your own capital on pushing the ads out",
"it's basically the same as me saying, \"you could earn $5000 per week by picking up loose change!\"\n\nSure, yes, it's not literally impossible, but it's practically and realistically impossible. ",
"My sister applied for one of those. It ended up being a scheme where you had to buy knives and then resell them. To start the job you had to buy at least $1200 worth of product. It was also a pyramid scheme.",
"It's ~~a pyramid scheme~~ *totally not a pyramid scheme, guys!*\n\n[P & T's *Bullshit* did a great episode on this](_URL_0_)",
"It's normally affiliate marketing with painfully low commission rates. Affiliate marketing is when you sell a product for a company, and you get a fraction of the original product price as pay. The only way you could make $5000 in a week is if you had a HUGE network, or some very prime products, with wealthy buyers. The products with the highest commission is normally software, but I find that to be the hardest product to sell. Don't get sucked into the hole of these shitty schemes. If you want to do affiliate marketing, go out on your own, and research some sites. ",
"1) You pay a fee to join, usually small < $100\n\n2) They send you a letter that says \"Place an ad in a newspaper or online that says *Earn $5,000 per week while working at home.*\"\n\n3) Profit!",
"One of my co workers is working way less now because they make money selling sex toys and such. It's a buy and resale type deal called pure romance. ",
"Somebody spent money and time to post that ad. Think about why they would do that if they actually knew how to make $5000 a month online.\n\nTheir actual strategy for making money online is tricking people into paying them for lessons on making money online.",
"What do you think...? \n\nIt's predatory schemes that definitely will not result in the promised outcome. ",
"In short, it's usually some sort of Multi-Level Marketing scheme, and the figure they quote is from the top performing contingent.",
"It's a scam. Lol....\nRead up on:\nParcel mule scam\n411 Nigerian scam\nInk toner scam.\n\nAnd stay away from vector marketing and primerica",
"_URL_0_\n\nmost of them are (were) from herbalife. a very interesting company to look into if you like shady shit. ",
"Oh man, my neighbors have been pestering me with lines like \"hey, you wanna make more money?\" Turns out...fucking AmWay...\n\n...yeah, go fuck yourselves. ",
"Haven't clicked on any of them, but I have a feeling it's MLM. Now, MLM can be a good opportunity IF the company behind it is reputable. So how do you determine if the company is a good one (how to tell if it's not a Pyramid scheme)?\n\n**There's a product.** This usually gets used as a front as a technicality so let's get more specific: the product should at least be distributed EXCLUSIVELY by the MLM company. At best, they themselves manufacture the products. Also, the product should be CONSUMABLE. Bulk of your income from selling products will come from repeat customers. Finally, take a look at the buy-in price. The buy-in is the first bulk of products you buy from the company so you are formally part of it. Make sure that that first bulk will net you a considerable profit if you sold all of it at the company's listed SRP.\n\n**Look at the company's leadership.** Usually, new MLM companies are opened up by the top income earners on other companies. So take a look at the founders, in particular, if they were part of other companies prior, and if there are more than a few companies that they founded that doesn't exist anymore (or is currently on the way out), that's a red flag.\n\n**Fact-check the company.** Make sure that they actually are located in their listed corporate address. I know of one instance where it was listed by proxy and can't actually be reached. Also, make sure that it's at the very least 10 years old. Don't be blinded by the words \"we'll be pioneers here\" (the assumption is that since you're in first, you automatically get a huge income from a huge organization). MLM is tough enough as it is, you don't want the additional burden of a company's growing pains to it (no results to show for).\n\n**Look at the available support.** A good company will not just take your money and leave you hanging. We all know that story: guy joins a company, attracted by the prospect of making it big. The minute he paid up and got his products, he heard from his sponsor nevermore. By support, I meant that the company itself provides accessible training materials. Also make sure that you look at the team you will be a part of (MLM companies usually have whole organizations of people under a \"team\" banner) and see if you like the people there and they can provide you the support you need (you will need some sales training because that's what you'll essentially be doing). This ties in with the compensation plan: do you have a reason to be as hands-on with the training of someone you personally sponsored compared to someone sponsored by a (for all intents and purposes) stranger under your organization? The answer should be yes.\n\nAnd the big one: **What happens to your income when the recruiting stops?** Always, ALWAYS, ask this. Good compensation plans from these companies have something in place for when this happens. Remember: one of the hooks is that you can retire and secure a passive income. This will never happen if the backbone of the income is from recruitment. Usually this is achieved by having a good product. If people have a reason for continued patronage of the product, the sales from that alone should be enough to sustain your income.\n\nFor an image of what is NOT a good company, I point you to [this](_URL_0_). The mere fact that the company is listed in Seychelles, no discernible product other than a promise and no one in the corporate office can be reached for comment should bring up all sorts of red flags.\n\nSOURCE: I was pestered by multiple companies but decided to join one particular company after a bit of soul searching. This was four years ago. It turned into a gateway for me to gain new friends, new skills, and an extra avenue of income. I won't name the company I'm part of, because it might be misconstrued as advertising/solicitation (and we have compliance rules about that), but if you have questions, just leave a message and I'll answer it to the best of my ability."
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a05b1v | why is it thay when you move at high speeds and look to your side things seem to go by at a certain speed, but when you look forward, things come at you (in what appears to be) a lower speed? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a05b1v/eli5_why_is_it_thay_when_you_move_at_high_speeds/ | {
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"Its basically a combination of our binocular vision, as well as our brains processing the incoming information at different rates. Your eyes want to focus on something. Where that kicks in is when something moves half its width in 100 milliseconds. When an object is far away, its motion relative to your fixed perspective seems slower. When you pass it, it seems super fast, causing the blur. As it gets further away, it slows down to our perspective. It's much easier to focus on a single point further away than a rapidly moving point close to us. The blur effect has been theorized as our brains making up for the fact that binocular vision is better for long distance and stationary targets, not close fast moving ones. This would have been a very useful adaptation for early man/cro magnon to help with being attacked."
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28p8tq | why is a mortgage only 30 years? why can't it be 60 years? | Unless you just started your career, no employee at the bank will ever work there long enough to see all the money from the mortgage repaid.
So this leads me to believe that mortgages and other long term loans are for the good of the company as a whole 30 years from now, and not for any current benefactor.
If this is the case, why can't we have a 60 year mortgage? Or maybe a 100 year mortgage? In a 100 year mortgage, if you have no heirs the bank could just get the property back AND keep all your money.
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/28p8tq/eli5_why_is_a_mortgage_only_30_years_why_cant_it/ | {
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"They don't want your property, they want your money. Banks are in the business of loaning money, not real estate.\n\nBesides, who would want to be saddled with a mortgage their entire life? The whole point is to pay the thing off. 30 years is long enough to make the payments manageable. \n\nEdit: Proofreading",
"Why *wouldn't* it be for the institution as a whole? It's not like there's one guy who is getting the interest on that mortgage you've been paying; it's the bank as a whole. Actually, re-reading your post and I don't think you really understand how mortgages work.\n\nBasically, 30 years is right in the middle...most people buy a house in their 20's (or at least used to) which means they would pay off their house when they are in their 50's. That means they'd be paid up right before retirement.\n\nAny shorter, and people wouldn't be able to make payments. Any longer, and the bank would have to deal more often with people dying and wills and probate. 30 basically avoids both issues, plus it balances payments made vs interest vs reality, and you can't really deviate *too* far from that.\n\nAdd in to that that--even if demographics change--the industry kind of has that set to a standard, it's probably easier to adjust things to fit 30 years than to change it. \n\nAnd, as with all things, you *will* find mortgages that are not 30 years--they are just by far the most common.",
"Most people stop retire at 65. Most people buy their first home between 25 and 35. Hence, a 30 year mortgage makes sense."
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ekmvkj | why does our body fluctuate so much in weight from day to day? | I weighed myself a couple days ago and I weighed a certain number, then I weighed myself yesterday and I weighed 3lbs less. I ate very little (thanks depression) and I did my daily routine again this morning and I had put on 3lbs again. I know water weight can factor in, but why does this happen to our bodies in such drastic amounts? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ekmvkj/eli5_why_does_our_body_fluctuate_so_much_in/ | {
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"A pint of water weighs a pound, and it is very easy to lose or gain several pounds of water weight just by the normal process of breathing and perspiration and urination. If you have access to a scale, weigh yourself before you go to bed and when you wake up before eating or drinking anything. The results will surprise you.",
"Eating or drinking is going to add weight.\n\nPissing, shitting, sweating, exhaling, or bleeding all cause loss.\n\nWe do these things differently from day to day depending on temp, our schedule, how we feel, etc. So the numbers aren't the same consistently."
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3fnd6y | is eating a lot of junk food quickly versus eating the same amount over a spread out time period any better or worse for you? | To elaborate, let's say I have a bag of candies. Is it any worse for me health-wise to eat all of them in an hour versus having one a day for 20 or so days? Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3fnd6y/eli5_is_eating_a_lot_of_junk_food_quickly_versus/ | {
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"While eating them over 20 days or in 1 day will be the same net amount of caloric/sugar intake, spreading it out allows your blood sugar levels to be more consistent.\n\neating a bag of candy at once will spike your blood sugar - this is bad! If you are diabetic, this is REALLY BAD and can lead to a number of health complications. If you aren't diabetic and do this kind of thing consistently, you'll ^edit gain weight and eventually be diabetic which is REALLY BAD.\n\nTL;DR in terms of raw energy, its the same. In terms of how it effects your body, sweets taken over time is better than all at once. Therefore it is better healthwise to **NOT** eat a ton of sweets / high-carb foods at a single time, especially if its a consistent part of your diet."
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5cz3dh | why would you buy a light bulb with higher wattage that outputs the same lumens? | I'm bulb shopping right now and the whole thing is very confusing. Of course I want the most light possible, so I'm looking for the most lumens.
But on Amazon when searching for 800-1099 lumens it gives the additional filter option by wattage ranging from under 10 to 70 and above.
Wattage directly relates to the power and cost it will take to use the bulb, so in what scenario would I want a higher wattage for the same brightness? I don't understand a situation I would choose to pay more money for the same amount of light.
Can someone explain why I might want a higher wattage lightbulb that outputs the same lumens? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5cz3dh/eli5_why_would_you_buy_a_light_bulb_with_higher/ | {
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"If you are using the bulb for heating such as in a chicken coop or reptile cage then the wattage is more important as more watts means more heat",
"Different technologies have different watt to lumen ratios, and tradeoffs. Incandescent are the traditional lightbulbs, which were much higher wattage per lumen. They lasted a few months or a year typically, but were cheap. CFL (the soft serve looking ones) is a more recent technology that were more energy efficient, but have limitations like taking a while to reach full brightness, and inability to dim unless you buy special, high er end ones. CFLs are more expensive than incandescent but last longer. LED is the newest technology, and doesn't have the drawbacks CFLs do, but their color skewed too blue/white until recently, when they've developed warmer tones more conducive to the home. Also they were really expensive at first, but have come down in cost the past couple years. 4-5 years ago, they were like $40/bulb but now they can he had for under $10."
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22zuqm | why is reheating chicken/rice such a bad idea? | What exactly causes this to be a terrible idea? I've been reheating Chicken/Rice for years and have never had any adverse side effects. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/22zuqm/eli5_why_is_reheating_chickenrice_such_a_bad_idea/ | {
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"Bacillus cereus.\n\nIf the spores in the rice are left to germinate at room temperature they are not killed by reheating.\n\nIf you cook your rice, chicken etc, then cool it rapidly and keep it at fridge temperature, and reheat only once - then never a problem.\n\nLeaving rice out - always dispose. You can NOT refrigerate and then heat once it has been left out."
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cb9b3o | why does mold have a fuzzy appearance? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cb9b3o/eli5_why_does_mold_have_a_fuzzy_appearance/ | {
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"Moulds are made up of tiny hairlike structures called [*hyphae*](_URL_0_). (That's actually the definition of a mould: a fungus that grows in that pattern, as opposed to something that forms single-celled units like yeasts.) In a lot of moulds, these grow upwards and outwards, which give it the appearance of being fuzzy, just like in things covered in actual hair. You can see examples on things [like the this](_URL_1_).\n\nWhy don't all moulds look quite so fuzzy? Well, that's largely down to their specific evolution and how best they're geared towards survival. In some moulds, the hyphae are shorter, so you don't get that fuzzy appearance."
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1kgpbc | why bin laden wasn't captured and had a trial instead of being killed? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1kgpbc/eli5_why_bin_laden_wasnt_captured_and_had_a_trial/ | {
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"On the topic of his death in disposal, he was probably thrown into the ocean so Al-Quada members would have no place or body to worship of their fallen leader in the aftermath."
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aq80pb | how does not voting or voting for a small party affect the outcome of an election? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/aq80pb/eli5_how_does_not_voting_or_voting_for_a_small/ | {
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"Voting for a small party shows the ruling party that there are people out there that are **willing to vote**, but disagree with them.\n\nIf say 5% of the vote went to a third party then one or both of the major parties will try to appeal to those voters. \n\n\nBut if you dont vote then it shows them that they can literally ignore you and what you want. Because it's not like you are going to go vote for someone else that might replace them. ",
"Vote for the small party that you can support. In a way, not voting can be helpful for the ruling party. For a small example, 20 voters. A got 6. B got 5. C got 4. So 5 didn't vote since they feel that the ruling party(A) will win even if they cast their vote. But if they did vote against, then the result would be different. If at least 3 of them voted for B or C then the ruling party will lose. ",
" > Basically I am asking who it favours if people choose not to vote. I am considering not voting in my country's general election (not US) at all since the ruling party and opposition party have made some really bad moves in the last few years. Or I would consider voting for a smaller party whoe policies I can support. Just wondering if this will effectively count as a vote for the ruling party. \n\nThis entirely depends on the mechanics of the voting system your government uses. If it is a plurality system (winner is whoever gets the most votes), then not voting shouldn't affect the outcome. If it is a majority system (winner needs the majority of votes) then not voting makes it easier to get a majority which makes more popular parties seem more popular than they actually are.\n\nIf you are considering voting for a smaller party, consider what your second choice would be. How would you vote if that third party wasn't an option? If your second choice is one of the other main parties, then voting for a smaller party that has little chance of winning hurts that main party and actually favors the opposition."
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cvgiod | why do some cars accelerate from 0-60 faster than from 5-60? shouldn’t the rolling start always be faster as both cars are in the same gear? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cvgiod/eli5_why_do_some_cars_accelerate_from_060_faster/ | {
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"When you do the 0 - 60 you rev the engine to the RPM where it produces the most power and then dump the clutch. This is very hard on the car, but produces the fastest acceleration. The complaint against this is that it's not how people drive, so 0 - 60 times don't represent how a car feels when you drive it.\n\nFor 5 - 60, the engine will already be in gear and at very low rpm. So this tests the engine's power across the entire rpm rage. This is more what you will experience when you need to accelerate onto an onramp.\n\nAWD cars, like Subaru STI, get much better times for 0 - 60 since the AWD helps the car accelerate without wheel spin.",
"5-60 would be the test you want also if competing against an electric car. Electric motors have maximum torque between 0 and 1 RPM. All internal combustion engines are extremely weak at very low RPM so an electric will leap way out off the line."
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63u7d8 | how does cooling an area that's inflamated helps the healing process? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/63u7d8/eli5_how_does_cooling_an_area_thats_inflamated/ | {
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"There's not actually a lot of information to suggest that it does. What it *does* do, is reduce swelling and nerve conduction. In other words, it can increase comfort for the injured party. ",
"It might not actually help the healing process itself. Inflammation is the body's response to damage, causing blood vessels to expand which is believed to allow better blood flow for the immune system to remove dead cells. However, that swelling causes pain and tenderness in the area. Keeping the region cool reduces the swelling as well as dulls the nerves, thus mitigating the unpleasantness."
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axcdog | why does the pareto principle occur when everything regresses to a mean? | And by mean I'm talking about a normal gaussian distribution. Or are they like two types of distributions that both regress to a certain mean?
In context: 80 percent of the money circulating in US is owned to only 20 percent of people. So if we plot the graph where the x axis represents the percentage of the population and the y axis representing the amount of money owned, wouldn't the graph curve around to like the 30th percent of richest people in US or something?
Note that my highest mathematical background is high school level so yeah please bear with me :) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/axcdog/eli5why_does_the_pareto_principle_occur_when/ | {
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"The [Pareto distribution](_URL_2_) is different from a [normal distribution.](_URL_0_) Normal distributions apply when:\n\n > The normal distribution is useful because of the central limit theorem. In its most general form, under some conditions (which include finite variance), it states that averages of samples of observations of random variables independently drawn from independent distributions converge in distribution to the normal, that is, they become normally distributed when the number of observations is sufficiently large. \n\nThe key phrases in that description are *random, independently drawn,* and *independant distributions.* The variables don't affect the other variables. In the Pareto distribution, they aren't independant. It's like how if you roll a die, there's a 1/6 chance of a given number appearing. But if you roll a loaded die, a different distribution would occur.\n\nAlso, when Pareto originally did the research, [it did come out to around a 30/70 distribution.](_URL_1_)\n\n > However, the 80-20 rule corresponds to a particular value of α, and in fact, Pareto's data on British income taxes in his Cours d'économie politique indicates that about 30% of the population had about 70% of the income."
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_distribution#Applications",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_distribution"
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1t62nh | how can carnivorous animals eat (animals) raw meat, without getting food poisoning - like humans would? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1t62nh/eli5_how_can_carnivorous_animals_eat_animals_raw/ | {
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"Firstly they eat it completely fresh, so no bacterial build up in the muscle flesh. Secondly some of them (like vultures) have much stronger stomach acid that kills pathogens. Thirdly, they are vulnerable to parasites and other diseases, like humans, they just don't have the same access to medicine, and die younger in the wild than they might do in a very well funded zoo.",
"You can eat some raw meat without getting sick, we just move our meat around a lot more letting it get exposed to all kinda of bacteria, and it has a higher chance of things like parasites. ",
"Multiple reasons.\nOne, they can have different enzymes that break down more proteins. \nThey have better adapted immune functions.\nThey also have more internal positive bacteria that help them lyse harmful pathogens. ",
"In addition to what's already been said, they absolutely do occasionally eat bad meat and get food poisoning. Animals can and do die from eating bad meat.",
"Most of the raw meat you buy does not have any diseases and you could eat them raw without getting sick. However, you have a much lower risk of getting sick if you cook them.",
"Steak tartare and sashimi; we can eat meat and fish raw without getting food poisoning, and it's daaaaamn tasty."
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cu2bae | why did some cultures build cities and other big/permanent structures, while others didn't? | Cultures around the world have been building temples and tombs and cities for thousands of years; most people think of Europe, but there's also the Americas, parts of Africa, parts of Asia. Everyone can name some famous historical buildings or ruins from multiple countries.
Why is it then that other people didn't? I've never heard of or seen anything really permanent built by the Australian Aboriginals for instance - arguably the oldest culture on earth - and I'm Australian! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/cu2bae/eli5_why_did_some_cultures_build_cities_and_other/ | {
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"Cities form once agriculture begins.\n\nIn regions too environmentally hostile for long term major agricultural development, societies build around hunting/gathering, fishing, or livestock keeping instead.\n\nThis usually precludes the development of large permanent cities, since a large population can't continually and excessively hunt/graze the same area very long.",
"Some conditions allow for it and some don’t. The first societies that arose did so exclusively around fertile river valleys. In this case, large scale agriculture was possible and a necessity to maintain population growth. Which in then creates more labor > more people to do stuff other than growing crops > build big buildings. When these societies establish, their culture will be capable of interacting with others and trade ideas, alternatively conquer more land and build infrastructure. So basically, if one society is established, neighboring regions will be influenced by them. \n\nNomadic people on the other hand, usually live in conditions that don’t allow for agriculture. So for instance Mongolia or the Arabian peninsula you can’t grow shit. Hence people travelled with livestock who provide them with what they need. But they also need to travel with them so they can graze and trade with other tribes. Building permanent settlements here anywhere aside from by an oasis is not viable. \n\nAs for aborigines, they lived in Stone Age, hunter-gatherer societies, because they were more or less completely isolated from the rest of the world and the conditions weren’t favourable for agriculture.",
"Food. You can't make cities if you don't have enough concentration of food to feed that city. Today only a small portion of the population need to work to produce food, but it wasn't like that in the past.\n\n\\- Agriculture is hard, you need a lot of knowledge, good soil and good plant to be able to do it with decent result. A lot of people were not able to do it yet, or were in situation where living of hunting and gathering just gave more result for their effort. So they had to move and couldn't stay in the same place for enough time to develop a city.\n\n\\- There was a LOT of technological development in agriculture over the years. As those technology spread people were able to produce more food in a certain area, allowing cities to grow. And I'm not talking about tractor or stuff like that, there was a lot of development in agriculture over the years. Finding the best type of crops and spreading that knowledge, using stone tools, domestication of animal to work on the farm, crop rotation, irrigation, etc. In the beginning, we simple didn't had enough technology to make farming productive enough to feed cities, and so only in the most fertile region huge civilisation were able to prosper. Anywhere else, each square kilometre of field just didn't produce enough food. As technology progressed, less fertile regions were able to produce enough food and cities started to appear all over the world, but it take time to knowledge and know how to spread. In Australia they had the disadvantage of being isolated, Europe could learn through merchant about a technology developed in China and they had a far larger population that could come up with new idea, so the development was faster."
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2zqmt1 | why do professional sports have a draft? specifically speaking, what is stopping a player from opting out from the draft and just choosing their desired team? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2zqmt1/eli5_why_do_professional_sports_have_a_draft/ | {
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"The best athletes would go to whoever pays them the most or wherever they want to live the most, ie los angeles, new york, etc. thus the draft tries to keep the big markets from overruning the smaller ones. ",
"I know NOTHING about sports, so anyone, please correct me if I'm wrong......but my thinking would be that each sport has a league/governing body that tells the member teams the ways in which they are allowed to get new players, trade players, etc. Therefore if the team one wants to join has to use a draft, if you want to be on that team or any others in that league, you would have to partake in the draft.",
"In terms of the NFL, it is the Players union, which they must be part of, and the Union has a collective bargaining agreement with the NFL to make everyone play by the rules. \n\nHowever if you want to be a little bitch like Eli Manning or John Elway you can just throw a fit and say you won't play for the team that drafts you and force them to trade you somewhere else. "
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23ywcz | tyre tread i understand gives grip/traction, whats the point in racing slicks or f1 style tread-less tyres? | I know that they can warm up and become sticky but I don't know if its too obvious or I'm missing something | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/23ywcz/eli5_tyre_tread_i_understand_gives_griptraction/ | {
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"Grooves in tyres are there to disperse water, hence wet racing tyres, and road tyres have grooves. Slicks are far more prone to aquaplaning in the rain.",
"Grip is proportional to the surface area of contact - therefore the more contact surface you can have between the tire and the road, the more grip you will have. This lets the car make tighter turns without losing traction and skidding. Hence for F1 tires they make them wide and without treads.\n\nHowever when the road gets wet, that changes completely. You can actually get a thin film of water between the road and the tire, a phenomenon called [aquaplaning](_URL_0_). This makes the contact between the road and the tire almost frictionless, which means you can't break or steer, which is why it's so dangerous to cars. To help prevent this they make ties with treads so that the water can channel in the treads and the rest of the tire can contact directly with the road.\n\nSo in racing cars, they'll use bald tires most of the time for better traction, but switch to treaded tires when the road gets wet. For normal every-day cars, we just use treaded tires because we don't drive at the extreme conditions that would require the need of bald tires, and it's too much of a bother to have to switch out your tires every time it rains."
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6mwkfe | the origins of the term 'witch hunt'? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6mwkfe/eli5_the_origins_of_the_term_witch_hunt/ | {
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"They actually used to think Witches were real, like creatures of the Devil that walked among us and were out to do bad things. People would accuse people of being witches and ultimately kill them. The [Salem witch trials](_URL_0_) are pretty famous. That might be a good thing for you to read up on. ",
"Medieval Britain. The pox come down your street? Perhaps your cattle were slaughtered by wolves. Or a child disfigured by an unfortunate accident.\n\nThis happened a couple of times in a short space of time or geographic spacing? No such thing as a coincidence, and God wouldn't do this. Must be a witch in town.\n\nGoing looking for something to blame for all the wrongs even if their link is coincidental, tenuous or totally unrelated. A witch hunt!",
"Seriously? Have you never heard of Salem? It happened before that but i thought that was widely acknowledged history. When towns used to have a natural disaster (disease, drought, mysterious death) they would blame an outcast, sentence and try them for witchcraft which was impossible to prove you weren't using their criteria and then be killed. Killing them was suppose to stop whatever was \"magic\" was causing the issue. Thing is if they killed someone and it didn't work they found another and said they were part of a coven. \n\nAin't superstition grand?",
"... It comes from hunting witches. The phrase was popularized during the Cold War hysteria around persecution of presumed communist sympathizers by drawing analogies to witch hunts in the 1640s. Women would be accused of being witches and mobs would hold sham trials or tests resulting in the accused being burned at a stake or drowned. For example a woman would be thrown into a body of water with a large stone tied to her legs. If she was a witch she would use magic to float in which case she would be killed, but if she was innocent she would drown and \"God would take care of her soul\".",
"It started out as a reference to events like the Salem Witch Trials where people were being accused of varrious forms of heresy and blastphemy with the barest scraps of circumstantial evidence. Frequently, people were condemned on the basis of purely circumstantial evidence or the accusations of another accused person who offered testimony in exchange for lenience."
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2veu43 | what are those lines and bumps on hard palate(roof of the mouth)? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2veu43/eli5_what_are_those_lines_and_bumps_on_hard/ | {
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"Googled your (almost) exact title, first result is a wiki article:\n\n > On the anterior portion of the roof of the hard palate are the rugae, irregular ridges in the mucous membrane that help facilitate the movement of food backwards towards the pharynx."
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4ga06g | why do we always expect the economy to grow? isn't unlimited growth impossible? is there a theoretical "economic roof?" | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4ga06g/eli5_why_do_we_always_expect_the_economy_to_grow/ | {
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"In a perfect world, the economy should grow at the same rate as the population. We've unfortunately back pedaled recently so faster growth is encouraged and desired. \n\nTechnically unlimited growth is no possible, but we shouldn't see an economic roof until we have overpopulation problems worldwide. ",
"Economics is based on the premise that humans have unlimited wants but scarce resources. We desire to maximize what we can get out of our scarce resources.\n\nResources are limited but through ingenuity we can derive more goods and services per unit of raw material and labor. For example, technological advancements would allow us to grow more food using less land, less water, and less labor. In this scenario, the economy has \"grown\" despite us having the same land, same water, and same man-hours that we had before the improvement.\n\nMaybe, there's a limit, maybe not. It depends on how far creativity can take us. In the meantime we are still able to increase productivity and we should continue to strive getting the most we can out of limited resources to make life better for human beings.",
"Ultimately, the answer to that question is kind of unknown. The bases of a growing economy relies on new raw materials being added to the mix in order to keep things chugging along. However, these resources are slowly being depleted or becoming obsolete, so unlimited growth becomes less likely. Then, we have think about things on a more extra terrestrial level. For example, we may slowly deplete the resources on Earth, but by that time may have moved on to mining resources in space from other bodies. The possibilities that lay out in space are enormous and would allow the economy to continue to grow.\n\nThe big question is what happens when resources that a growing economy depends on become obsolete. Petrol, for example, is slowly becoming obsolete with renewable energy surging forward. The big oil companies play a vital role in the global economy, so when the demand for their product decreases, the economy will see change. How this will pan out is unknown.",
"There are 3 general things that drive the economy: \nResources \nPeople (this is generally folded into resources, but we'll keep it separate for this example) \n & \ntechnology \n\nResources is obviously fixed, aside from solar power (I don't mean literal solar power panels, but everything that we get from the sun) and its derivatives. We can only get more by recycling or foraging for more. For non-renewable resources, yes, we'll eventually use it all up. \n\nPopulation is more or less always increasing, and at a relatively fixed population growth rate. There is a relatively population cap that the Earth can sustain, though this will be tied to our technological capabilities.\n\nAnd for the final factor -- technology -- there is no limit. We can always improve our knowledge of the sciences, and use resources and/or people more efficiently.\n\nSo even if our resources decline to renewable resources only, and our population becomes capped, technology will enable our economy to grow.",
"considering that there are a finite amount of resources, yes, there is theoretically a ceiling. the concept of continual growth is a concept that's unique to capitalism, and it only makes sense when the thing that represents wealth (money/capital/numbers) is ultimately considered more important than the actual wealth (resources, people, technology, etc.)",
"Yes unlimited growth is *impossible* but the limit is way outside our ability to even conceive of. However I think you're asking if *constant* growth is impossible, to which I would answer YES. If you look at the history of civilizations there have always been rises AND falls in science, art and especially the economy. Marx believed recession was an inextricable part of capitalism. I'd be hard pressed to disagree. But politicians have never been good at selling measured responses or long term thinking. We either have New Deals or Reagan Revolutions or the blind optimism of Greenspan/Bernanke. We expect the economy to always grow because that's what wins elections. It has nothing to do with fact or theory. It's just good marketing.",
"There is a book about how we may one day find ourselves living in a static economy. \"The End of Growth\" I believe it's called. ",
"Imagine this conversation taking place about 400 years ago.\n\n\"Imagine if every family owned a cow.\"\n\n\"That's ridiculous.\"\n\n\"No, really, imagine if every family owned two cows, even, or three!\"\n\n\"Impossible.\"\n\n\"Why impossible? Why should there be any limit on what we can achieve as a people?\"\n\n\"The land would never sustain it. Whose fields are going to feed all those cows? And who's going to milk them all? You're dreaming. There are simply limits on mankind that can never be exceeded.\""
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5fl4d2 | why are ball bearings so strong? is it because of their shape? | Why does it take so much force to crush this ball bearing? _URL_0_ | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5fl4d2/eli5_why_are_ball_bearings_so_strong_is_it/ | {
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],
"text": [
"Depending on the type of bearing, a bearing ball might actually be a structural element of the machine. If that ball crushes in the machine, the entire machine might break down, and it could do so catastrophically and dangerously if metal goes shearing off in random directions. As a result, bearing balls are generally made of very high-grade steel with very low impurities, to reduce the risk of sudden failure.",
"looking at the vid seems like the issue is hardness. bearings will be hardened steel so they don't deform easily and roll smoothly. in turn it's more brittle. \n\nthe press gets up to pressure then the ball shatters instead of deforming. same as glass would but the steel is able to hold up to a lot more pressure before breaking resulting in a lot of energy release at that moment. "
]
} | [] | [
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWySdXedUiY"
] | [
[],
[]
] |
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